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Halloween

Thursday, October 5, 2006

Brain Candy! (gummi brains)

Brains! Brains! Must eat brains!

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I don’t have much to say ... they’re gummis in the shape of brains. The colors vary, some with blue in them, some white and pink or red. But they’re all the same fruity, berry flavor.

They’re lovely, if you like to look at brains. They have nice folds and detail, with a good left-brain/right-brain distinction. They’re soft and very fragrant.

I got mine in a large bag of 6.6 pounds. Yes, that’s as much as two actual human brains weigh! I know that the human brain weighs three pounds because there’s a show coming on CBS mid-season called 3 LBS that’s about brain surgeons! (This is different from the piece of information we gleaned from Jerry Maguire that the human head weighs 8 lbs - which I figure includes the skull and eyeballs and stuff.)

If you’re a zombie fan and are planning a big movie extravaganza for Halloween, you probably need 6.6 pounds of brains. I have the large brains here, they’re about 1 3/4” lengthwise, which is a good size for a three-bite brain. They also come in a little, one bite size. I kind of miss the variety of flavors like you get with gummi bears. But the appearance of a good squishy candy brain is pretty good. They’d be fun cupcake toppers, too.

Name: Gummi Brains (Large)
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Lutti
Place Purchased: samples from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $27
Size: 6.6 pounds
Calories per ounce: 132
Categories: Gummi, Belgium, Halloween

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:41 am    

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Equal Exchange Halloween Kit

Equal Exchange has a new kit just for Halloween and Fair Trade celebrating and GreenLAGirl has the complete scoop.

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Basically it’s a fun kit that includes Equal Exchange miniatures (perfect for tossing in those trick or treat bags) as well as some decorations and informative cards about fair trade.

Because October is Fair Trade month, you can get a special discount: 10% off on all orders of $20 or more use the coupon code ftm2006. So throw in an additional bag of the miniatures to make the minimum and you’re good to go for your Green Halloween!

Here’s the original review of the chocolates.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:30 am     CandyGreen HalloweenReviewHalloweenEqual ExchangeChocolateEthically Sourced8-Tasty

Monday, October 2, 2006

Endangered Species Halloween Treats

In the continuing series for a Green Halloween, I’m on the lookout for no-compromise treats for kids and adults.

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Endangered Species is offering up party packs of their individually wrapped tablets of milk & dark chocolate called “Halloween Treats” - I got a package of the Dark Chocolate ones as a sample directly from Endangered Species. 

The package contains 24 fall colored treats that look tasty and should appeal to trick-or-treaters. The cool thing about the dark chocolate ones is that they’re certified vegan, kosher and are ethically traded. Here’s my full review of this product under the name of “Bug Bites.” The dark chocolate is rather dark and intense, so I’d recommend the milk chocolate for trick-or-treaters (unless you want to go vegan).

That all comes at a price though, they’re on the expensive side at $5.50 a bag online but I saw them at Whole Foods for only $3.29. (The display was near the bulk foods, not by the registers or with the rest of the chocolate near the bakery in my store.) They’re a bit cheaper than the Bug Bites, I’m guessing because they don’t have the trading cards. Though that’s a bit much by the pound, the pieces are kind of small which means you get 24 in there. Mix it in with a few hard candies (College Farm - review next week) or lollies (College Farm or YummyEarth - review later this week) and the kids won’t be tempted to egg your house. Ethically traded means that you’re not taking advantage of families in Africa and South America, so it really can be a Happy Halloween all around.

To learn more about Fair Trade (and the difference between Ethically Traded and Fair Trade Certified) check out GreenLAGirl ... October is Fair Trade Month!

Name: Dark Chocolate Halloween Treats
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Endangered Species
Place Purchased: samples from Endangered Species
Price: varies
Size: 8.4 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Categories: Chocolate, United States, Endangered Species, Fair Trade, Green Halloween, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:22 am    

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

College Farm Organic Naturepops

Here’s an all natural, organic candy that does a great job of looking and tasting like a traditional mass-manufactured lollipop. But these are different from the moment you pick up the package, because they’ve taken the packaging into account when creating the product.

College Farm Organic has been around for over 50 years (making traditional candies at first) and have only recently gone after the organic hard candy market. Their line of products include hard toffees, hard candies and these lollies.

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They’re a nice size and shape. Not huge, but a good morsel. They’re oval shaped and rather flat. They’re smooth for the most part with some bubbles and voids, but nothing to cut up your mouth like a Tootsie Pop can. They aren’t clear, more opaque than most other hard candy lollipops, but the colors are appealing. They’re wrapped in a very noisy biodegradable corn starch cellophane.

They come in a mixed bag of 18 pops in four flavors.

Citrus Blast (orange) - smelled like lemonade, but tasted like very concentrated orange. Tangy, sweet, a little zesty.

Tropical Treat (yellow) - definite apricot and mango flavors with a bit of pineapple. Tart and sweet and tasty.

Cheery Cherry (red)  - mild and tart and overall pleasant but with no particular flavor there. It did get more flavorful as I went along, but never really gave me a zing.

Wild Berry (dark red) - floral and sweet with a nice rounded berry flavor that wasn’t particularly raspberry or strawberry but a nice overall experience.

College Farm Organics Naturepops are made with no gluten, nuts, dairy, soy or eggs and with evaporated cane juice, so they’re suitable for folks with dietary restrictions and vegans.

The size is great and they taste just like hard candies - if you’re looking for something to give the kids that you won’t feel quite as guilty about, then pick some up. I saw them at Whole Foods over the weekend ($3.99 a bag), so they’re making their way into stores and you can buy them at Amazon (for about a dollar less per bag, but of course in quantities). As a Green Halloween candy, they fit into the fun factor. Lollies were not on my prime list of Halloween booty, but they were definitely something to be consumed (and not traded). The taste is the same as a traditional lolly and they don’t look any different, so the kids won’t think that you’re that stick in the mud that gives out “healthy” stuff.

Name: Naturepops
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: College Farm Organic
Place Purchased: samples from College Farm
Price: ~$2.95-$3.99 retail
Size: 5.1 ounces
Calories per ounce: 113
Categories: Hard Candy, United States, Organic, Kosher, Green Halloween

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:26 am    

Monday, September 25, 2006

Green Halloween

There are plenty of sites that can offer you info on all the gross and spooky treats for Halloween. I thought I’d offer up a series of posts that might help you make some more environmentally and socially aware decisions for Halloween.

bla-jackolanterns

It’s a good opportunity to give kids a special treat that isn’t necessarily full of artificial chemicals or results from a lot fertilizers and pesticides being applied to the earth. And just perhaps child slaves weren’t used in the creation of it. But who wants to be that house on the street that gives out toothbrushes or quarters or apples? There must be products out there that can satisfy everyone.

I’ll be posting for the next few weeks on the topic of different good tasting treats you can hand out to the kids, some that might even be affordable and available in your local area.

If you want a top-to-bottom approach for the whole Green lifestyle, Siel at GreenLAGirl is going to be helping me out by posting about the big picture. She started today with the first in her series. She’ll cover the politics of chocolate, organic and fair trade issues and of course positive changes we can all incorporate into our lives.

Here are a few of the organic and fair trade sweets I’ve reviewed to date. Not all are appropriate for handing out to Trick-or-Treaters, so I’ll make an effort to bring you more about those, but learning more about the brands that are available might help you make a decision at the store:

Endangered Species
Bug Bites & Bat Bar
Peanut Brittle & Rice Crisp

Equal Exchange
Espresso, Mint & Cocoa Nibs
Dark Chocolate Miniatures
Dark, Milk & Dark with Almonds

Green & Black’s
Maya Gold Bar
Espresso Chocolate
Ginger Chocolate
White Chocolate

Dagoba
Milk Chocolate Hazelnut
Dark Bars - Lavender, Roseberry & Xocolatl
Milk Chocolate Chai

Other Products:
Thompson Organic Chocolate Bars
Pure Fun Candy Floss
Divine Dark & Milk Chocolate

I’ll have some hard candies, lollipops and more chocolates soon!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:25 am     CandyGreen HalloweenReviewHalloweenNewsShopping

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Halloween Treats at I-Mockery

I could never put together such a comprehensive review all in one like I-Mockery does. They’ve got a huge roundup of the 2006 Halloween treats. Many are just different shapes or colors of our favorite candies, but some are truly unique offerings.

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(Warning, there are some popup ads on their site.)

What are you looking forward to? What have you seen so far in stores?

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:39 pm     HalloweenFun Stuff

Monday, April 24, 2006

Great Pumpkin!

You know if I’m not eating candy or writing about candy, I’m out on the internet reading about candy and looking at candy photos.

Last week I stumbled across two incredible sets of photos on Flickr, here’s a small sample:

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Joshua has over 175 photos of individual pieces of Halloween candy, both wrapped and then unwrapped.

I emailed him, and he gave me the story behind it. He collected a barrel of candy (50 gallons!) for Halloween as part of his work as a youth pastor. They did a huge challenge called the Pumpkin Hunt for middle and high school aged kids, kind of like a treasure hunt:

We divide kids up into teams of like 4-6 each and they race through different clues that send ‘em all over the place in our community and the first one to make it to the candy wins. There’s also a combination lock on the candy, and along the way they pick up 3 numbers to the lock and have to get ‘em in order and unlock the padlock to actually win.

Wow, way harder than Trick-or-Treat, but it sounds a lot more fun. I wonder if the winner got the whole 50 gallons?

 

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:43 am     ReviewHalloweenFun StuffNewsPhotography

Monday, October 31, 2005

Happy Halloween

I know I’ve mentioned before about Halloween being the start of candy season, and I think I need to clarify what candy season is:

Candy season is the time of year when candy is not only widely available to people under the guise of celebrating a particular holiday, but it’s also packaged for said holiday. Because of this seasonal packaging, it all goes on sale the day after the holiday is over. As I spent a great deal of my young adulthood devoting my finances towards my education, keeping up with the sugar habit without breaking the bank was very important. The fact that candy season mirrors the school year is especially important.

The day after Halloween, I’d always go to the store and stock up on half-off candy, the same with Christmas, Valentine’s Day and finally Easter. The holiday candy would get cheaper and cheaper, and of course would be less and less desirable. But who can resist at 15 cent bag of candy corn?

Even though I have a good job now, I still shop the half-off sales (though I don’t necessarily go out the day after). But now I’m not the only one who does that, so the discounts right after the holiday are no longer as deep.

 

So, if you come to my door tonight, you’ll get this fine candy that I paid full price for (well, some from the 99 cent store and some from Target’s sale with “lowest prices of the season”). I’m giving out assorted Hershey’s fun sizes, 100 Grand bars, Tootsie pops, Smarties (American) and Skittles. I like to give out a variety, with some chocolate items (which are coveted) but a fair share of non-chocolate/nuts for the kids who can’t have it for some reason.

I don’t expect to have much left tomorrow morning as I start getting more generous as the night goes on in order to make sure I have as little left as possible. I don’t want people to think that I’m selfish with my candy!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:27 am     ReviewHalloweenNews

Page 13 of 14 pages ‹ First  < 11 12 13 14 > 

Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.

 

 

 

 

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ON DECK

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