Healthy Candy? UNREAL!

It doesn’t take long after I’ve entered the door of my childhood home in Connecticut before I gravitate to the long cabinet near the dining area of the kitchen. Out of habit, I inspect what there is to eat. It’s the family junk food depository, home to assorted cookies and candy. While the contents have changed over the years, the premise remains: here’s where you’ll find a quick, usually sweet, nosh.

As my children grew, each house we lived in had its junk food cabinet, equally cherished and visited.  The complaint  “there’s nothing to eat in this house,” usually referred to the lack of anything appealing there.

When I visit my son Jacob and daughter-in-law’s Adeena’s house, I tend to open a similar cabinet, well stocked with all sorts of snacks, from apricots to walnuts, granola bars to pretzels, and chocolate, thin bars laced with mint or caramel or bite-sized delights.

Hearing about UNREAL last summer, I’d sent the information to my kids. And now Adeena is buying the candy. I sampled two UNREAL products my last visit. The company, founded by a 13 –year- old after his father confiscated his Halloween candy, offers five types of candy, all mirroring popular Mars offerings. Called by number, ie, UN8 and UN41, the candy comes in bright packages and claims no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, no corn syrup and more. The website compares the ingredients to the Mars counterparts.

I found the UNREAL candy less sweet and more natural tasting. Adeena said the UNREAL  available at most chain stores like CVS and Target, does cost more than the less healthier candy.

I thought about UNREAL when I read  about the opening of a M&M pop up store in Hackettstown, NJ, home to a Mars production factory since 1958.

Residents have gleefully greeted the  M&M’s World, projected to be open through Halloween and maybe through Christmas, creating a “Mars Chocolate North America Day” and renaming a part of the main road outside the factory M&M’s Chocolate  Avenue.

As a nation, we’re worried about the economy and health care.

As we create more jobs, such as a new store, shouldn’t health be part of the equation?  Is every attempt being made to ensure “green” practices and healthy choices?

We’re accustomed to finding the lowest cost as consumers. We expect cheap gas, while our counterparts worldwide routinely pay higher fuel prices. We want inexpensive produce and imported goods manufactured by lower labor costs.

Maybe it’s time for us to consider the future instead of our own self-absorbed present.  A few extra dollars might be better for everyone’s health.

Ironically, the newspaper article placed a filler between the M&M article and the next story. It was a quote by Henry David Thoreau.

“What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.”

Food for thought.