Candy Canes

Normally I shy away from anything that isn't completely natural, especially candy with its loads of sugar, artificial colors, and preservatives. But not last night. I gave in and bought a pack of candy canes.

I really wanted *one* candy cane last year, but they don't sell the fruit flavoured ones in singles. I definitely didn't want one of those giant peppermint monstrosities that can be used as a crow bar. So for a year I was candy-cane-less.

This made me determined to buy some this year when we went to Walgreens last night. We had just bought a gorgeous 8' white pine with uber awesome stand and were looking for LED Christmas lights to put on it when I saw them across the aisle:

Spree, Sweet Tart, Now and Later, Life Savers...cherry, peppermint, mint chocolate...pineapple, strawberry, watermelon....an appalling blue colored one; all sorts of flavors. I was surprised to see so many candy companies making candy cane versions of their normal products.

I decided that if I was going to disregard my usual strict qualifications of what, precisely, is edible, I had better get some unique candy canes whose flavours were all equally appealing. I looked across the the packaging. Watermelon or strawberry was a plus, those flavours are hard to get wrong. Pineapple seemed like a tricky flavour; I had a premonition it would end up as bad as fake banana. Mixed berry looked like it might have potential...Blue Punch?? What the heck kind of flavour is that?

Then I saw Bubblicious watermelon, bubble gum, strawberry candy canes filled with gum! Remembering the packs of watermelon Bubblicious I'd buy when I was younger, I grabbed the box. I had my good assortment of flavors and a unique product--who else puts gum inside of candy canes? I had to see how this arrangement could possibly work.

I checked the back. No HFCS, no hydrogenated oils, no aspartame, just titanium dioxide (sigh...this is my white paint) along with the usual artificial colorings and preservatives. Each candy cane has 11g of sugar. Not too bad, I thought since when I do actually eat candy, it is very slowly. A single candy cane would probably last 2-3 days, a box of 10 might take a year. As I walked to the register, I told myself that it was well deserved and I would only take one of each flavour and share the rest at work.