Yes, more good news from the candy science front. Not only is chocolate a health food (something that I’ve been espousing since I was in high school and did a term paper on it with that thesis), but sugar may ease stress hormones.

Scientific American reports on a recent study where rats were given twice daily doses of water - either sugar sweetened, dosed with artificial sweeteners or left pure.

Rats, like humans, love sugar. So it comes as no surprise that during two weeks of training for a recent lab experiment, the rodents queued up twice daily for small doses of sugar water. What researchers did not anticipate was the apparent effect of the sweet stuff on their stress levels: when they placed the rats in stressful circumstances at the end of those two weeks, the animals were less agitated than expected.

Multiple blood samples taken from the rats showed lower levels of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids than those that were given a saccharin solution or just plain water before being subjected to psychological or physical duress, according to research presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. “We actually found that sugar snacks, not artificially sweetened snacks, are better self-medications for the two most common types of stress—psychological and physical,” explains Yvonne Ulrich-Lai, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati who led the study.

Have a look via this link to the article.

Name: Dairy Milk
Brand: Cadbury
Place Purchased: Sainsbury (West Los Angeles)
Price: $1.29
Size: 1.3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 148
Type: Chocolate

I picked this up in the interest of documenting all the UK frothed chocolate bars. For those of you keeping score at home, the most well known is the Nestle Aero Bar (which comes in several flavor variations).

Not as wide or plank-like as the Aero (about a third of an ounce smaller), this is a little bar contains bubbleated Cadbury milk chocolate. Cadbury milk, for those of you that have had it, is distinctive in that it tastes like chocolate and powdered milk. Some people think that’s a good thing. I don’t find it that appealing as it reminds me of that time when I was poor.

But with a little positive reinforcement I’m getting over that and finding the flavor rather intriguing (just like it took me many years to get over the rather yogurty flavor of Hershey chocolate).

The bar is light and melts easily on the tongue. It’s sweet, but not as sticky as I found the Aero bar. As with the Aero bar, the bubbles really help to bring out the toasty nuances of the chocolate (I’m guessing the air allows more aromas to combine and give more “flavor” to the bar).

Rating: 7 out of 10

Whew! I know I’ve been promising this since I launched Candy Blog, but here it is. I engaged Hop Studios in Vancouver for the redo and brought both my blogs into one place. Yes the design is pretty (thanks go out to Susannah Gardner’s special skills) and the code/layout is super awesome (thanks go out to Travis Smith).

Why change? Well, the old blog template was used by at least 83.6 million other blogs and when you land here, you shouldn’t feel like you could be anywhere. I wanted more CANDY PHOTOS! (Hit refresh to get another treat… well not too many times, there are only five right now.)

Second - we’ve got categories! We’ve got search! Now you can find out what I thought about Pocky last spring or White KitKats last summer. I’m still working on the categories, but at least now you can see all the ratings in one place.

Third - if you notice something wonky, post here in the comments and I’ll try to figure it out. I’m not completely moved in yet. Some stuff is still in boxes, but if you click something and it doesn’t go anywhere, lemme know.

Name: Nutrageous
Brand: Reese’s (Hershey’s)
Place Purchased: Long’s Drugs
Price: $.33 (on sale)
Size: 1.8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 156
Type: Chocolate/Peanuts/Caramel

Again I’m trying another Reese’s candy bar. I’m not sure why. I think Reese’s cups are pretty darn close to candy perfection. The Nutrageous bar adds whole nuts and caramel to that.

The bar, as the photo shows, is a center of peanut butter (which is more crumbly than creamy), which has a caramel stripe under it, then the whole thing is rolled in nuts and covered in milk chocolate. It’s a really satisfying, meaty bar. Not too sweet, a good hint of salt to it and some good textures. I don’t know why I haven’t tried this bar sooner. I prefer it far and away over a Snickers bar, which is a little too sticky sweet for me.

It’s still not a “go to” bar for me. I’ll still pick up a packet of Reese’s cups before this, unless I was really looking for a calorie charge with more protein in it. (Reese’s cups has 4 grams of protein, the Nutrageous has 6 grams.)

Rating - 7 out of 10

Name: Snickers Cruncher
Brand: Snickers (Mars)
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $.85
Size: 1.56 ounces
Calories per ounce: 141
Type: Chocolate/Peanuts/Crisp

I thought this was going to be a different bar. I was expecting it to be a regular Snickers bar but instead of just a chocolate enrobing, I thought that it would have crisped rice mixed in with the chocolate. (I didn’t really read the wrapper.) It’s not quite like that, as you can see from the photo.

Instead it’s a completely different bar. It’s crisped rice mixed with crunchy peanuts with a stripe of caramel on the top and then covered in sweet milk chocolate. Think a Hershey’s Whatchamacallit, only with whole peanuts in it.

It’s definitely crunchier and less sweet than a Snickers bar. It has an overall toffee taste to it because of the caramel and the nuts are very good (not gamey tasting like I’ve found in some cheap candy bars from time to time). It’s not as filling as a regular Snickers (you know they’re all about that “satisfying” thing). It felt lighter and left me wanting more (could be that it has 50 fewer calories). In fact, I’m probably more likely to buy this one than a regular Snickers in the future.

Rating - 8 out of 10