Of our members, 212 responded to this very important question and the results may surprise you.
Members were asked to choose one of six options: Snickers, M&M’s, Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Candy Corn and Toothbrushes.
Pretty overwhelmingly Candy Corn was the favorite, getting 31 percent of the vote. No other candy managed to clear 24 percent. That 24 percent was for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which narrowly edged Kit Kat (21 percent) for second place. In a distant fourth place was Snickers with 13 percent of the vote and in an even more distant fifth place was M&M’s with 6 percent. As you might expect, Toothbrushes finished last (4 percent). I assume those who voted for Toothbrushes are either part-time dentists or allergic to candy.
As part of this survey, the PIA Government & Industry Affairs and Industry Resource Center staff (plus one mystery writer) were asked to make a case for their favorite candy, or in some cases whatever candy was left after everyone had chosen one. What follows is that debate:
Dan Corbin
In favor of Toothbrushes
In favor of Toothbrushes
- grout;
- fingernails;
- computer keyboard;
- shoes;
- bike chains;
- hairdryer vent;
- jewelry;
- hairbrush; and
- blinds.
Oh, and it cleans teeth pretty well too, which brings us back to its economic value. Preventive dental care can save hundreds of dollars in dental expense.
Kat Slye
I LOVE Candy Corn, the only true Halloween candy, so I am thrilled (and not surprised) that it won in the Question of the Week survey. Candy Corn is the best Halloween candy because it is sweet without being too sweet, and you don’t have to eat a bunch of it to satisfy your sweet tooth (so you can indulge without compromising your waistline). The fact that they can make the three different colors taste different, all while being a part of the same piece of candy, is a feat of engineering genius!Another reason Candy Corn is so amazing is that it is a special fall treat! You can get all of the other options (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kat, M&M’s, and Snickers) all year round, even in the mini sizes, so there is nothing special about them. Candy Corn, on the other hand, can only be purchased during the Halloween season, making it a sweet, coveted commodity.
In fact, for Halloween 2018, this delicious, sugary confection ranked in the Top 3 selling Halloween candies in 17 states, according to data from CandyStore.com: it ranked as the top seller in seven states and second or third in five additional states each. The Candy Store data included many more options than the PIA survey, thus indicating that Candy Corn is a Halloween staple and favorite even when matched against many contenders.
Jack Skellington
I would like to talk for a minute about the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille (stay with me on this one). Ratatouille is about a rat named Remy, who dreams of becoming a chef in a Parisian restaurant and actually does! (Pixar can really make a movie about anything.) I am going to ruin the end of the movie for you: spoiler alert. Toward the end of the movie, Remy prepares the dish ratatouille (a melange of eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, tomatoes and herbs) for the famous, but notoriously harsh, food critic Ego. Ego looks at the dish skeptically. You can tell he is just waiting to be unimpressed, just like he has been every time he has had a meal in his adult life, so he can eviscerate the chef in his review. But then something amazing happens. Ego takes a bite. That bite takes him back to his childhood, to a time when his mother made him that exact dish. It was memory of simpler, happier times for Ego. He then proceeds to eat the rest of the meal, clearly enjoying it more than he has enjoyed anything in a long time.The point is that food, great food, is not great just because of its effect on our taste buds. No, it is great for the emotions and memories it triggers inside of you. That experience is uniquely personal. If I ate ratatouille, I would have no reaction other than “What in the hell am I eating?”. So, to me the question of what is the best candy isn’t really a question at all. The answer is clear. There is only one candy on this list that triggers an emotional reaction for me, only one candy that brings me back to a simpler time in life. That candy is Kit Kat.
Similar to ratatouille, Kit Kat is a relatively simple candy. It is a milk-chocolate-covered wafer. Not much to write home about there. But, whenever I eat a Kit Kat, I am instantly taken back in time (not literally) to elementary school when my biggest concern was whether there would be grilled cheese for lunch and the Undertaker would be wrestling on TV that night. Specifically, it reminds me of when my friends and I formed what amounted to an impromptu boy band and performed the incredibly catchy Kit Kat theme song for the entire lunch room (I was clearly a cool kid). Do I love Reese’s Peanut Cups and Snickers and M&M’s? Of course, but my enjoyment of those candies is only taste deep. Give me a Kit Kat and my memories any day.
Mary Ellen Hern
M&M’s rule the candy world. M&M’s are a perfect candy, as they embraces the dichotomies of the world, and are iconic! It is small, an excellent crisp candy shell encasing a drop of milk chocolate. Or it is huge, when consumed in handfuls, down-the-hatch-style.
They are colorful, found everywhere in brown-blue-green-yellow-orange-red. At the holidays, they are red, green, white, pastel, a range of pinks or autumnal. You can get M&M’s in 22 colors, ranging from teal to platinum. Do the colors taste different? I hope so, but I eat them in specific patterns: all the browns, then oranges, then yellows, so I can savor the bright colors, which I love the best.
“They melt in your mouth, not in your hand.” Madison Avenue at its best—and accurate!
Frank C. Mars learned to hand dip chocolates from his mother Elva, who tutored him at home after he contracted polio; he started his confectionery in 1883. The Mars Co. invented M&M’s in 1941, to send chocolate in small packages to our boys fighting in Europe and the Pacific in World War II. They proved so popular that our soldiers, sailors and airmen requested the candies when they came home. They were available to all Americans in 1945.
M&M’s are around the world, with Mars Wrigley Confectionary creating sweets and food stuff at operations in 70 countries, employing more than 30,000 employees. They have a noble set of principles guiding their operations: quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency and freedom.
Back to candy: M&M’s have proliferated, with so many flavors we could not count them all. Peanut, Crispy, Mint, Peanut Butter, Dark Chocolate, Almond, Pretzels, Dark Mint, Caramel, White Chocolate, Cookies & Cream … I learned there were Candy Corn M&M’s this Halloween.
You can make those M&M’s all yours, personalized for you! There are M&M’s wedding favors with your special date; bags as fundraisers with your school colors and a soccer ball on each morsel; and little boxes for your baby shower with pink and blue candies (or double pinks if you know the stork).
The little M&M’s people make me anxious, as I don’t like to think about eating them, but they are funny, entertaining, a little old-fashioned and corny, but so am I. I put M&M’s in Easter eggs, in cookies, spell out names on cakes or use them for the misplaced checkers on vacation. M&M’s feel all-American to me.
The Mars Co. has improved its products by cutting back on sugar, sodium and trans fats, and is involved in efforts to sustain the planet through water stewardship, limiting greenhouse gases, renewable energy and farmland management. My favorite is the cacao genome project to sequence, assemble and annotate the genome of the cacao tree, then sharing it with breeders to identify traits for climate change adaptability, enhanced yield, and efficiency in water and nutrient use, toward the goal of healthier, stronger and more productive cacao cultivars, which will improve farmers’ yields and incomes.
M&M’s are the best candy because they are endlessly fun and tasty. They hit the spot, and you keep coming back for just a couple more.
Clare Irvine
The one candy I actually buy in a large bag is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, the only candy I can eat for a week without tiring of the taste. Other treats may be good once in a while, but nothing will ever compare to these bites of somewhat sweet, slightly salty, chocolate and peanut butter masterpieces. If I could simply hand you one through WonkaVision, I would and instantly win this debate.Since WonkaVision has not been marketed to the public (yet), I will focus on actual facts to explain why no candy can compete with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Reese’s tops all other candies due to the perfect balance of sweet and salty flavors. Humans have five basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and savory/umami. (See: How does our sense of taste work?, National Center for Biotechnology). We tend to like sweet foods because the taste signals calories or energy, that we need while our body also needs salt every day to function. (Barb Stuckey, author of TASTE: Surprising Stories and Science About Why Food Tastes Good, via io9.com). Consequently, we have evolved to enjoy the two flavors together in the form of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
Layering flavors not only activates different senses in our taste buds but the complexity makes the candy distinct and interesting. Howard Moskowitz, a Harvard-trained psychologist and food industry consultant, suggested in a Smithsonian Magazine article that people grow tired of simple foods but savor complex tastes. (Vanderbilt, Tom. “Why you like what you like,”Smithsonian Magazine, June 2013). The lack of a single flavor makes the candy interesting, a complex jazz symphony of chocolate and peanut butter in a paper cup.
Other candies lack the complex, perfectly balanced flavors that make Reese’s such an enjoyable treat. Candy Corn is effective high-fructose corn syrup, sugar and food coloring. The sweetness allows us to enjoy the first bite but we quickly grow tired of the overwhelming, one-note taste. This is expected as people tend to tire of simple flavors (Vanderbilt). People may buy more Candy Corn in October, but there is a reason it seems to grow stale in candy bowls and fills up clearance candy bins in November. We like the idea and sweetness of the treat and then ignore it.
Kit Kat, M&M’s and Snickers may be good but none quite live up to the complexity of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Kit Kat tones down the sweetness with the wafer, adding a textural change but not much flavor. M&M’s add extra sugar to milk chocolate. I will nibble on them in front of me, but there is a reason they are running around adding new flavors to the middle of these treats without much success. Snickers bars are similar. They add more flavors but do not strike the balance of greatness. The problem with these candies is they are overly sweet.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are a complex symphony of tastes with the perfect texture, scientifically superior to other candy. People may claim they prefer another candy for Halloween but, by Nov. 1, they will have eaten all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in their variety packs and get stuck with four unwanted, untouched bags of Candy Corn.
Brad Lachut
To truly discover the superior candy, I think we need to remove emotion from the equation. It’s great that you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but is that enough for it to be the best candy? The solution is to inject a little science into this conversation.I propose that we conduct a science experiment with our survey choices. I will ask a series of very scientific questions. Anytime one of the choices does not answer said scientific question, it will be eliminated. By this method, we will discover which is truly and scientifically the best candy. On to the Science!
So our choices are:
Kit Kat
M&M’s
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Candy Corn
Snickers
Toothbrushes
Question 1: Which of our choices is actually candy?
Kit Kat
M&M’s
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Candy Corn
Snickers
Sorry Dan. Yes, Toothbrushes have many uses, including cleaning hairbrushes? (Is that really a thing) but being candy is definitively not one of those uses. Toothbrushes are thus eliminated. Toothbrushes you have been SCIENCED!
Question 2: Which of our choices is chocolate and thus superior to all other candies?
Kit Kat
M&M’s
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
Sorry Kat. Candy Corn is eliminated, as it is not chocolate (nor is it corn!), so it is by definition inferior to the other non-Toothbrush choices. Candy Corn you have been SCIENCED!
Question 3: Which of our choices has both chocolate and peanuts/peanut butter?
M&M’s
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
M&M’s (the peanut-butter variety), Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Snickers all have peanut butter or peanuts in them. What do Kit Kat have in them? Wafers. That’s right wafers. A food(?) that only becomes edible when covered with chocolate. Tell me the last time you ate a wafer that wasn’t covered in chocolate? Never. My point exactly. Sure they have a catchy jingle. You know who else is catchy? LFO. Remember those guys? Yeah, me neither. Kit Kat you are the LFO of candy and have been SCIENCED!
Question 4: Which of our choices has caramel, which behind peanut butter is the next best partner of chocolate?
M&M’s
Snickers
Sorry Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. You are absolutely delicious, but do you know why your name isn’t Reese’s Peanut Butter and Caramel Cups (trademark pending)? Because there is no caramel in Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Therefore, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups you have been SCIENCED! (M&M’s make it through once again because of the caramel M&M’s variation.)
Question 5: Which of our choices has contains nougat?
Snickers
Down goes M&M’s! Down goes M&M’s! They only lasted so long because they have so many varieties. But you know what variety they don’t have? Nougat. There is no such thing as nougat M&M’s (trademark pending). Now, do I know what nougat is? Absolutely not. But I do know that M&M’s don’t have them. M&M’s you have been SCIENCED!
So, there you have it! Snickers is the superior candy as determined by Science. Really this makes sense. Snickers appeals to the chocolate lover, the peanut lover, the caramel lover and the nougat lover. It’s like four candies in one. You could say it is the Swiss Army Knife of candies. Long live Snickers, long live science!
48