Monday, March 24, 2008
Easter candy woes

Now that the Easter Egg hunting has commenced, I think it's only fair we talk about the candy which is now all over our houses.

Don't worry too much if your kids like the Peeps, star bursts or fruit snacks but let's face it those items are not necessarily the number one candy on kids' lists, right?

The chocolate bunnies whether hollow or solid are both high in fat and sugar. Other offenders in the candy world are jelly beans, peanut butter cups and the foil-packaged chocolate eggs. Don't believe me, well look at the facts; just one half of a solid chocolate bunny has 26 grams of fat, 460 calories and 42 grams of sugar. The recommended intake of sugar per day is only 40 grams. See the problem? While jelly beans are low in fat, they have a lot of sugar and calories. Just 13 jelly beans will put your sugar intake up at 27 grams. Just 13!

So if your kids crave chocolate and won't touch the marshmallows or fruit snacks, then try and give them a tootsie roll they are much lower in both fat and sugar. It's also filling because tootsie rolls require more chewing, it takes longer to eat them and kids think they have eaten more that way.

Of course it's all up to you. If you're like me you started throwing away some of the candy already. Braeden eats solid chocolate only, typically in the form of Hershey kisses. But he certainly has a variety of other goodies to choose from and that worries me. I want my boy to eat more, but I'd rather it be sweet corn than sweet jelly beans. =o)

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7:58 AM
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