Test Your Halloween Candy
IQ!By Monica Gomez
 7 pieces of Now and Later candy. Seven
pieces (about 1 ounce) contain 110 calories. Along with those calories, you
also get an impressive 25 grams of carbs. However, keep in mind that most fruit
candies use corn syrup as a sweetening ingredient, which shows up as a
carbohydrate rather than a sugar in lab tests. Also remember that almost all
carbs in candy are sugars. Hate to disappoint all those Now and Later fans, but
it's just not the Beachbody way to eat candy as part of a healthy and balanced
diet.
- 22 pieces of candy
corn. Twenty-two pieces of those yellow-orange-white
triangles will yield you 140 calories. Again, don't be lured by the 36 grams of
carbs that accompany those calories. Along with those carbs, what do you get?
You guessed it—too much sugar. Those 22 pieces pack 28 grams of sugar. The
alternative: not eating any of these treats (?) that really have no nutritive
value (never been a big fan—though a shocking 20 million lbs. of candy
corn are consumed by Americans each year!). Well, you can eat them if you
consider the 110 mg of sodium that you'll get to be nutritious.
 4 pieces of Snickers miniatures. Mmmm. Chocolate! Four of these mini chocolate delights contain
170 calories and 8 grams of fat, 3 of those saturated. The problem with mini
chocolates—well, mini anything actually? You may not be able to stop at
just four. When the trick-or-treating is finally over, you may have dozens of
these wrappers littered at your feet. Just four pieces contain 17 grams of
sugar. Multiply that (and the 8 grams of fat, 3 saturated) by however many you
end up eating and you can really do some sugar-packed damage. So if you can't
stop at just four, it's best not to eat any. Sorry, chocolate lovers (me
included).
- 1.7 ounce box of
Nerds. While a 1.7 ounce box of Nerds has an appealing 0
grams of fat, it does have an incredible 43.9 grams of sugar (wow!). That makes
its 188 calories simply less-than-nutritious and health-devoid sugar calories.
These were a personal favorite growing up—but nothing more than just empty
calories. As with the Snickers miniatures, you may not stop at just one tiny
box (as a kid, I'd often have 4 or 5 or, well, I'd lose count). It's best to
stay completely away from these tempting sweets.
 Candied apple without nuts. The operative
words here: without nuts. Remember that those crunchy treats can bump up the
calorie and fat content. A small five-ounce candied apple has about 215
calories and 3.3 grams of fiber—which may prove useful if you wake up on
November 1st only to realize that you ate an entire bag of Halloween candy and
need to "clean" out your system. Keep in mind though that the caramel glaze on
that apple will add about 37.9 grams of sugar! A healthy alternative: make your
own and try using sugar-free syrup in your recipe to reduce that sugar content,
or sugar-free caramel candy if you prefer to melt your own. An even healthier
alternative: what about eating that apple without any caramel goop added to its
already delicious exterior? I'm just saying!
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