Thursday, October 22, 2009

Candy Bar Data

With Halloween approaching, I thought it would be appropriate to address candy bars since most of us will likely be eating one (or several) around Halloween. Many years ago I decided to do some research. I wanted to compare the nutrients for several popular candy bars, but I didn't want to be a tight wad and stand in the candy isle with a clip board writing down all the data, so I went ahead and purchased a ton of candy. I volunteered my body to science as I compared, analyzed, and then ate all of the following candy bars listed below.
I wanted to know if someone was going to eat a candy bar, which ones would do the most or least damage. I created a spread sheet which allowed me to sort them by calories, fat grams, saturated fat, carbs, protein, sugar, and sodium content. I have been trying to import my spreadsheet into blogger for a couple weeks now, but since I am challenged in this area I am just going to list the candy bars by calories.

Salted Nut Roll 340 calories (largest candy with the most protein & sodium)
Big Kat 290 (had the most saturated fat with 10 grams)
Snickers 280
Baby Ruth 280 (had the most sugar with 31 grams)
Twix 280
5th Avenue 280
Butterfinger 270
Milky Way 270
Mr. Goodbar 270 (ties Salted Nut roll with most fat grams-16)
Payday 260
Three Musketeers 260 (the highest amount of carbs with 46 grams)
Rolos 260
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups 250
Mounds 250
M & M Peanuts 250
Mars Bar 240
Almond Joy 240
Rocky Road 240
M & M Plain 240
Watchamacallit 230
Crunch 230
Hersheys Regular 230
Hersheys w/Almonds 230 (had the least sugar-18 grams & lowest carbs-20)
Skor 220 (the smallest candy bar at only 1.40 oz.)
Reese's Pieces 220
Krackel 220
Kit Kat 220
Caramello 210
Junior Mints 210 (along with York Patty had the lowest sodium 10 mg)
$100,000 Bar 190
York Mint Patty 170 (lowest in fat 3 grams and saturated fat 2 grams)

*Some of the data may have changed recently. I've noticed that many candy bars keep getting smaller each time I got to the store so the serving sizes and overall numbers may be slightly off since I originally compiled this data nearly 10 years ago.