A couple of weeks ago, I made a dangerous discovery at my local Dollartree. I was picking up the stick pretzels that I often buy there when I turned around and saw this…

And this…

And this and this…

It’s like every candy from my childhood suddenly burst to life in front of me.

I couldn’t resist purchasing a sample of them to see which lived up to my memories. I went with Snow Caps, Raisinettes, Whoppers, Sugar Babies, and Charleston Chews. The only ones to disappoint where the Charleston Chews, which is ironic because they were my favorite candy growing up. The rest of the gang was a cornucopia of sugary deliciousness.

In my perpetual quest to lose weight, I evaluated the calorie count for a serving of each and figured out that if I had a single serving, I could factor it into my daily menu as a treat. (In other news, I’ve been on a weight loss plan for almost a year provided by my health insurance and lost exactly zero pounds. Or ounces.)

I did my best to stick to three tablespoons of Sno Caps or 21 Sugar Babies, which proved to be my trigger treat. In the midst of my indulgence, I happened upon a recent study that said people who drank sugary beverages had a much higher risk of developing gastric cancer. I breathed a sigh of relief that I’ve never liked sweetened drinks and even gave up diet sodas years ago. Then I had a thought. My daughter had a friend who sometimes ate sugar by the spoonful. Horrifying as I found this, I was probably doing the same thing with my daily candy dosing. And it occurred to me that there would be a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of sugar beverages and my candy collection.

I won’t be browsing the candy aisle anymore. And the leftover boxes have been emptied into our compost bin. But boy, was it fun while it lasted!

Readers, what was your favorite candy when you were a kid? Did you have a go-to treat when you went to the movies?