Before I knew anything about food and it’s effects on the body – I was a candy addict. To my family and friends, I was the queen of candy! I knew every brand, every flavor, and always had candy with me. And then, during my wellness journey years ago, when I discovered all my beloved candy had chemicals, trans fats, preservatives and petroleum based artificial colors added to it – I flipped. I immediately banned all major brands of candy and haven’t looked back.
Just look at the ingredients in Starbursts & Twizzler Twerpz and you’ll see what I mean.
I also found out these brands contain GMOs (genetically modified organisms) – something I hadn’t given much thought to until recently.
And then I thought about the upcoming holiday and how many people are going to be buying this junk and giving genetically modified candy to their friends, neighbors and families.
If you’ve already bought your Halloween candy and it’s one of these brands on the left of this chart below – you might want to start looking for your receipt.
I created this chart to help navigate better candy choices without the added chemicals, preservatives, trans fats, artificial colors and GMOs. The brands on the right are amazing GMO free substitutes that are very similar tasting to the popular candy brands on the left.
Many of the better and GMO free candy options are available to purchase at local health food stores, on the internet and at even some mainstream stores like Target.
- Endangered Species Organic Chocolate
- UnReal Candy #54 and UnReal Candy #41
- UnReal #8
- Panda Raspberry or Cherry Licorice
- Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks
- Yummy Earth Organic Gummy Bears
- UnReal #77 Peanut Butter Cups
- Surf Sweets Sour Berry Bears
- Yummy Earth Organic Candy
If we all take a stand and stop supporting companies that use these chemicals and GMOs in their products – eventually there will be a tipping point. A tipping point, where food manufacturers will willingly remove these ingredients from their products.
This is what the GMO Free Friday movement is about and it’s one of the only ways we are going to eradicate GMOs from our food supply.
So join me (and many others) on this GMO Free Friday and celebrate companies that don’t use GMOs and ban companies that do.
And tell all your friends, neighbors and family members – you want a GMO Free Halloween – even if it doesn’t fall on a Friday!
Food Babe
P.S. If you’d like to keep your Halloween completely candy free and GMO free – Check out these adorable jack-o-latern faced tangerines a fan posted on my Facebook page and 100 Days of Real Food’s 20 ways to do Halloween without candy.
Thanks for posting this! Definitely important for us moms who’s children loves the occasional sweet treat. We are definitely trying to do our part and thank you for doing yours!
I love the halloween faced tangerine idea! But I’m definitely craving some of those peanut butter cups right now. I’m really glad to be candy-free most of the time! Thanks for pointing out some great alternative candies!
See you tomorrow at the expo!
Wondering if you saw page one of the business section of the LA times today about prop 37 and what your thoughts are?
I’m disappointed that fresh meat, cheese, dairy products, eggs, alcoholic beverages and organic foods are excluded!
The only one I politically have an issue with is alcohol as it really is a product containing GMO vs. meat/dairy which are products of animals that may have eaten GMO feed. I still wish I knew what the animal ate, but I can live without it for now JUST to get the ball rolling on this issue.
Buying grassfed or pastured meats that are not finished on grain should take care of the GMO issue with feed. The reason it’s so important in pet food is because almost all commercial pet foods contain grains. No on 37 is doing a fantastic job of making the exclusions an “issue” with the way the bill is written, but if you dig you’ll see that most of the exclusions make sense and excluding them makes the bill much easier to pass.
The tangerines are exactly what I am doing this year for my son’s Kindergarten class! He is excited about drawing faces on them for his classmates!
I don’t feel I can make my son not trick or treat but he isn’t all that into it so we don’t bring home lots of candy. I am going to propose to him that he trades his candy for an amazon gift card! Love love love the tangarines!
We do the same thing, either trade for a Mom Approved Sweet Basket/Bag or a Coveted Toy. I do feel bad that we donate the candy to the troops though…as they shouldn’t be eating either…
Do you use permanent marker on the mini tangerines? We eat those all the time (the ones from California – I won’t buy the ones from Chile, ew).. I’m wondering if the marker soaks into the fruit or does it stay on the outside just fine? I wouldn’t want to contaminate the fruit!
Guess I can always try it on one… Thanks for sharing such a cute idea!
We’ve been giving out the Yummy Earth lollipops and Bug Bites chocolate squares ever since the 1st halloween yummy earth was available! They are delicious pops! It’s really suprising there aren’t more natural and non-gmo candies available.
Another AMAZING candy bar option is Angell Bars. They are divine taste wise and organic – the perfect occasional indulgence!
West Coast based company so not distributed widely in our area but available on Amazon. Check it out and tell Suzanne Beth at Outta the Park sent you if you ever reach out to her. Could be a great blog post/story at Halloween time.
How do you verify the brand is non GMO, especially the ones containing soy?
Certified organic products must be GMO free. Some non-organic products such as Unreal candy will say GMO free on the package. You also can check out http://www.nongmoproject.org/ which has a list of verified Non-GMO products. It’s pretty hard to tell or verify otherwise.
I just found out that organic apples are waxed with a shellac wax!!!!How bad is that? I thought shellac was a paint product..Hope I am wrong…I have been peeling them..Can you answer this question?
You are right according to Bulls Eye ”shellac is ..an alcohol based solution of pure lac, a natural resin secreted by tiny insects on certain trees, mainly in India.” It’s used in rubber compounds, hat stiffeners, electrical insulating varnishes, playing card coatings, printing inks, gasket cements and nail varnishes. Well they say their is only about a drop on the apple it still is pretty gross.
I noticed that the Yummy Earth Organic Gummy Bears have ‘natural flavor’ listed as one of the ingredients…do you think I should be concerned about this ingredient?
After learning more about “natural flavor” I was disappointed to see today that the Annie’s fruit snack, even though “organic” contain Natural Flavor. Not cool! It’s also unfortunate because a lot of these healthier, “cleaner” versions for favorite snacks are not made to be safe for treenut allergic individuals which is also a downer for parents like me trying to find healthy alternatives without having to spend my life in kitchen. The full size Hershey’s chocolate bar and Starbursts are some of the only things I could assure were ok without spend a fortune, but those look to be off the list of possibilities now.
I had not thought about candy containing GMO’s until today while finally getting around to go by CVS to get Unreal candy. I didn’t know about the company until reading on Feingold Facebook page. I bought the M&M type candy and the Snickers type. They were both very, very good! Thanks for ALL you do to keep us informed.
Had to share this on my Facebook fan page. I wasn’t addicted to sweets but haven’t been able to lose the last few lbs I wanted to with exercise alone, so I decided to give up sweets 3 weeks ago. I plan on doing this over Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, so let’s see how well I do. The hardest part for me is that I help take care of my mom (who has dementia) and have my parents over for dinner up to 3x per week. My mom always wants dessert. So watching others eat it around me, and making it for them, is hard!!
Hi Vani! You may want to make a note that only the Endangered Species ORGANIC chocolate being GMO free. I recently emailed Endangered Species questioning about their beet sugar in their “natural” chocolates and they told me that it was indeed GMO beet sugar. So only their organic line is GMO free. Just thought you may want to know! Love always!
Courtney
Great point – The link up top goes to the organic variety and I’ve updated it to say “organic”… thanks!!!
What exactly is “Wheat Flour”? I know it is in a lot of all natural products, but is it something to worry about?
I wrote to Smarties company to see if they contain GMOs. Their sugar is in the form of dextrose which is from corn. This is the response I got and I don’t know if I can believe it.
Good Morning Linda-
All products that Smarties Candy Company manufactures are GMO free.
Thank you for your interest in Smarties Candy.
Kerri Nastasi
Customer Service
Smarties Candy Company
Email: kgoral@smarties.com
Phone: (908) 964-0660 x202
Very suspicious!
I got another response that assured me their products are gmo free. If that is true, I wonder why they don’t mention it on their website. That would be a selling point.
If you need another reason to step away from the Reese’s peanutbutter cups…child labor involved in all of those chocolate producers
http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2012/10/the-inconvenient-truth-about-your.html?m=1
So sad!
THank you for sending me this post link on my “Perfect Health” blog. I have shared it on facebook and on my “Eating for Better Health” blog. Great post!!
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have been wondering how to break my families dependence on sweet treats that contain things such as GMO’s and other nasty additives and your information is just what we needed.
I am sick of hearing all the ignorance and band wagon people talking about and posting about how bad GMO’s are for us. As an Ag Major and professional in the industry I am well versed in this area. I do not want to provide a product that harms people nor would I ever. This talk today about how GMO’s are bad for you is ludicrous! Foods have been genetically modified since before Christ was on the earth 2000 years ago! More current records go back to the 30′s showing GMO’s. There has not been one case of health issues directly as a result from the GMO’s. I am very happy the proposition didn’t pass because all it was is a way to make Americans more lazy than we already are. If it means that much to you I have no problem with your particular choices. However instead of forcing producers to put something on the label just use the smart phone in your hand at search look up if there are GMO’s in the product yourself!
Really? Are you also “as a professional in the industry” well versed in the violation of child labor laws by major companies?
Popping by to see the brands you recommend… I’m in search of decent chocolate eggs for my toddler’s Easter basket (next to the local, organic farm-raised, free range hard-boiled chicken eggs we’ll color with India Tree dye). Maybe one of these companies makes something worth indulging in? One god idea I hadn’t thought of is the Annie’s bunnies!
Hi Vani,
I wanted to mention that the Panda Licorice should probably be taken off the list as being a healthy alternative to regular licorice. I’m not sure if this ingredient is a recent change, but when I was at the store I picked up a packaged remembering you had reccomended it. To my dismay the ingredient label contained “Natural Cherry / Raspberry flavors.” The package said “New!” so I’m fairly certain that this was added after you wrote about them being safe to consume. It’s really disheartening because I really wanted to buy some but I wouldn’t even touch it knowing it had those chemicals in it. Just thought I would give you a heads up because I revere and trust your opinion so much, and sometimes companies decide to take a turn in the wrong direction and begin adding adverse chemicals to their foods. I can try to take a picture and email it to you, or next time you’re in the store pick up a bag and check out their “new and improved” flavors.
- Devyn
Thanks for the info. We’ll check it out!