Find Hidden Candy

How much "candy" is in the food you eat?

This 20 oz. bottle of orange soda contains 84 grams of sugar.  
Drinking the soda would be like eating all the candy on the scale.

Most candy is made from sugar, corn syrup, and flavorings.  These same ingredients are used to sweeten lots of different kinds of foods.
Can you find the "hidden candy" in other food you eat?

What you need:

  • Sweet food with ingredient label, such as fruit-flavored drink, soda pop, fruit snacks, or yogurt
  • Candy made mostly from sugar, such as mint Life Savers, Altoids, or Smarties
  • Kitchen scale

What to do:

  1. Check the label to find out how much sugar your sweet food contains.
  2. Weigh candy on the kitchen scale until it matches the weight of the sugar.
  3. Eating your sweet food would be like eating that much candy.
What you see:
Some snacks are really candy in disguise, such as fruit snacks made of corn syrup, sugar, flavorings, and gelatin--the same ingredients as gummy bears. 

Other popular foods have "hidden candy."  For instance, one fruit-flavored brand of yogurt has 28 grams extra sugar--as much as five mint Life Savers plus four Altoids.


From the book Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt

Please do not copy, sell, post, publish, or distribute all or any part of this material without the author's permission. Instead, feel free to link to this website, and to contact me with questions.

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