Forgotten Sweetness

I don’t eat candy often. Gummi candies don’t really interest me. Some hard candies I like but don’t eat often. When I want candy, I want chocolate, and I’ll occasionally have it, but it’s dark chocolate. I tend to avoid the mainstream cheap candy bars that are just too sweet for me. I’ll see TV commercials for them and feel nothing (well, maybe just a bit skeptical at their claims). When I’m at the supermarket I never look at these candy bars (that are supposed to be “tempting” at the checkout line) with desire, so I don’t buy them or eat them.

A co-worker brought unwanted Halloween candy to work and left them in a bowl in the kitchen for anyone to take. These free small candy bars were sitting there and I’ll admit, my resistance was low. My brain said, “Don’t eat them. You know they’ll be too sweet.” But my stomach said, “Go ahead, have some. It’s been a long time.” And it has been a long time. I’m guessing the last time I had any of these sugary concoctions was last Halloween. [Pause.] I’d actually forgotten what a lot of these candies taste like.

So I ate some Halloween candy. The Almond Joy was pretty good because I like coconut and almonds enough that I could over look the milk chocolate coating. I’ve always been ambivalent of Snickers, but when I had them this time, I liked them even less—they’re just too sweet. As a child I liked Kit Kats, but when I had them this time I was overcome by its cloying sweetness. Luckily, Halloween candy is smaller than full-size candy bars, so I only had a couple of bites of these “fun-size” candies—which was more than enough for me. I came to conclusion that, yes, my brain was right: stay away from these overly sweet sweets. If I’m going to eat candy, I’m getting chocolate that actually tastes like chocolate, not candy that just tastes like sugar.