A Sad Story About Nerds

 In this episode of Junk Fud and You I tell you a really sad story about a little Nerds shirt.

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Today's New Candy Review Makes Me Think About What's On A Package - Snap and Crackle

Whenever I review a candy, I try my hardest not to be influenced by the package. The thing is, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the package of a candy treat is really a big part of any candy experience. It's the first thing you see when you're at a candy store, and it often gives you some insight into what you should be expecting. Sometimes that expectation is only hinted at, and sometimes it's laid out in full words (I'd say full English, but I've had several candies that have zero English on them at all). This candy on the other hand has what it's "supposed" to be written in plain English, yet it doesn't actually have any of what it's describing. Strangely, this actually disappointed me.

Click here to find out why this taffy candy disappointed me.

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You can also follow us on Patreon to get free bonus stuff, previews of all our projects and even candy.

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An Interesting Week - Tryffeli Pussi

The news this week is pretty dire all over the world. I'm not the kind of person to look at the negative, but I'm also realistic as well. I've been fluctuating between shutting down all updates and just hunkering down, or doing more on the site, to try and entertain any of you out there that might be under lock down. Frankly I haven't decided if I'm going to change anything, so I decided to just keep things up as normal and see what comes up. That's why we have a new review today.

Right now I'm leaning towards working on extra content. I'm thinking about posting a few extra reviews, and maybe finishing off a few random ideas I've had for a while. While I'll be happy if it entertains any of you out there that might be feeling down, the main reason I'm doing it is to keep myself distracted and entertained.

Click here to read the latest review.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to check out how we're keeping ourselves entertained for the next few weeks.

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We Got Some New Treats On Our Trip to Bali/Singapore - Dairy Milk In Lickables

This latest trip to Bali and Singapore was not supposed to be about snacking, it was one of the rare occasions where we went somewhere that I thought I wouldn't find too much to review. I was very wrong. Today's new review is just the tip of the iceberg, and we'll have more treat reviews from this trip going up over the next month, or even two. These Lickables were probably the most mysterious of the treats we found, and I couldn't wait to crack open the package and figure them out. As it turns out, everything inside this strange package was pretty disappointing.

Click here to find out why these disappointed so much.

Also be sure to check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds to see what else we came across on this trip.

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It's Time For A Review... From Someplace Really Cold... Maybe It's Not Such A Good Idea - Sirius Rjomasukkuladi

I'm feeling a little down lately. I've got the Christmas blues attached to a little home sickness. I'm a big fan of Canada at this time of the year. I like the decorations, I like the snow (as long as I don't have to shovel it), and I like the holiday treats. I'm not in Canada so I miss not having it all around. Yesterday however Allison and I baked cookies, went to a Christmas concert, and also visited a Christmas market, and it helped.

I thought it might also help even more to have a chocolate bar from a place where it's really cold right now. Turns out that didn't help very much at all. I am looking forward to the review we're posting on Thursday because it's really filled with Christmas cheer. So here's hoping I get that last jolt of cheer before the holiday's start up in full.

Click here to read today's review from someplace really cold (Iceland).

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see our very festive review this Thursday (it's really Christmasy).

You can also check out our YouTube channel if that strikes you as fun.

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Candy In the Media - Chrismas Commerical That Will Make You Cry

This commercial just proves that the answer to everything, including world peace, is chocolate.

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This Might Be The Most Disturbing Ice Cream Treat Review We've Ever Posted - Lgantu

When I first bought this ice cream treat I didn't think much of it.  I thought it was a simple little butterfly shaped ice cream treat, and nothing more.  After inspecting the package a little  closer I found some pretty strange and dark details. It went from being a fairly harmless ice cream treat to being something so strange and weird that it kind of creeped me out.

Click here to find out why this ice cream is so creepy.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with all of our candy shenanigans.

You can also follow us Google+, if that's the kind of thing you might do.

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Candy In The Media - Crushing A Coke... Literally

If you like Coca-Cola you can know that the bottle survived much long than expected, if you hate Coca-Cola you can know that it eventually dies a horrible death.

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I Don't Like Mystery Flavours Anymore

I'd like to call an end to "mystery flavoured", "guess the flavour", and "name that flavour" candies and snacks.  It's not an original concept, and frankly it's very lazy.  For those unfamiliar, this is a trend that started about 10 years ago,  and has gone on strong ever since.  It's most common in potato chips, but I've seen it in other snacks and candy as well.  What this mystery flavour trend is, is a snack in a package, often covered in question marks, with no flavour listed anywhere. Instead of a named flavour the company labels the snack a "mystery" flavour, and sometimes offers the purchaser of the snack the opportunity to name the flavour themselves.  What you're getting is a flavour that the snack companies research and development team found tasty, but couldn't put a finger on what exact flavour it was.

What they do instead is get you to figure that out.  While I'm sure the marketing people at these snack companies would say that they're being "interactive", to me it just comes off as lazy.  There's a very interesting and challenging part of creating a new flavour, and it's about recognition.  If you eat a candy that's supposed to taste like apple, but instead it tastes like blueberry, your brain is going to set off some harsh warning signals.  Your brain may even go so far as to tell you that this apple has gone bad because it doesn't taste like an apple. Even if you like blueberry, and this is the best blueberry candy ever, your brain might tell you that it's gross because of  the expectation of apple flavouring.

This is something that marketing departments at snack companies have to get perfectly right every single time.  If they market a snack with a particular theme, and the flavour doesn't match in our heads with that theme, then it could lead to a complete failure of the snack. New Coke might have worked out perfectly if they didn't market it as a "better" version of Coke. If they had sold it as a different cola instead of a Coke replacement, we might still be drinking it today.  Flavour, and smell (which are very connected in our brains) are connected to our memories in a very strong way. If you smell cinnamon it might evoke memories of Christmas, if you smell pumpkin spice, you immediately think of fall no matter what the season.

This is why it's so important for these snack companies to get the theme and the flavour to match perfectly. When you read a package, your brain is preparing itself before you even take one bite.  If the description on the package does not match at all, then you could be in for a horrible experience no matter how "good" the snack actually is.  There are a few cases where candy companies will actually use this for their own benefit.  Some snack companies make treats that are purposefully the wrong colour for the flavour, to mess with our heads.  Why these snacks don't affect us as negatively is that they advertise it on the package, they warn our brains that something is going to be wrong.

Snack companies are making treats, and rather than taking the risk of labeling them a particular flavour, they're intentionally telling us that they don't have one in mind.  They're taking the easy way out of a very difficult and expensive part of the snack making process.  While this may seem like a clever idea, the problem I have is that every company seems to have a new "mystery" flavour every year.  It's a trend that grew old imediately after the first time it was done.

I don't eat snacks to solve a mystery, I eat snacks to satisfy my craving for whatever flavour I've been offered.  Sometimes I'm interested in trying new things, but I want to try new things that have a name, not a question mark.

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Candy In The Media

This was beautiful to watch, however I did shed a tear for all of the lost candy.

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Candy In the Media

People that leave gum on any seats (or anywhere for that matter) are the worst people in the world.

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Another Halloween Costume Candy Thing

Is there really a kid out there that wants to dress up as a generic mint candy?

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There's A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! Online

In this latest episode rather than watching Chris get grossed out, you can watch Chris be disappointed, and when it all boils down that's just so much worse.

Watch past episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! here.

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This Week In Candy

Well it was bound to happen one day, the old girl gave out.  I'm not one to update my computers often, I hold onto them until they completely give out. Yesterday my desktop computer, that had to be more than 7 years old finally gave it her last.  While that isn't the only computer I use to run my very meager internet empire, it did serve certain functions, that will have to be moved to other computers. I'll miss that computer as it served me well, and deserves better than an instantaneous blue screen of death every time I turn it on.  What this means for Candy Critic is not totally clear yet. There might be a few delays as I update this temporary laptop to do my bidding.  I was already in the process of updating this laptop, but there were a few things left to do. As a result this week's new review is either going to be delayed or not posted till next week.

Just because my computer is down, doesn't mean we're going to stop with "all" of our fun antics.  Along with our regular posts here, including our weekly Candy Thing on Wednesday and Candy In The Media on Friday, we'll also be back on track with the Junk Fud podcast.  This week's episode of Junk Fud will be Junk Fud News featuring a look back June and all of the fun junk food stuff that happened.

We're also going to go ahead with Snack Facts, our Instagram feed.  This week we're looking at classic treats that aren't American.  I know all you Americans out there are celebrating your independence, and I hope you have a great day.  Just remember, some of the greatest American treats were gifts from other nations. If you want to keep up with Snack Facts, you can follow it daily on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Now, can anybody recommend a good piece of video editing software that's free, and works well on a laptop?

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Candy In The Media

Apparently animal instinct and candy don't always work together, particularly when you're a raccoon trying to wash your cotton candy.

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Candy In The Media

Why would you want to shoot a gummy bear?

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This Week In Candy

It's a new day, a new month, and a new year, so there's lot to talk about.  First of all, this month we're celebrating two great things, cookies and retro cereal.  Every Wednesday this month we're posting a new cookie themed thing, because cookies are awesome, and there are so many cool cookie making tools out there to see.  Every Friday this month we're posting some classic retro cereal commercials.  While old cereal is stale and gross, looking back at old cereal and remembering how cool it was is not gross.

With the new year comes the first episode of the new and improved Junk Fud podcast.  Later this week we'll be posting the first episode, part one of our series called Junk Fud on the Road.  Next week we'll be posting our second episode, but first part in our series about junk food history.  In three week's we'll be posting the first episode of Junk Fud and You, our interview segment.  Finally, at the end of January we'll be posting the first in our end of the month candy round up podcasts called Junk Fud News.  Make sure to check back (or follow us on social media) to find out when the new episodes are released.

January is always a bit of a depression month for me, candy wise.  There's no holidays that celebrate sweet treats at all.  We have to wait till Valentine's Day before we can justifiably eat an entire box of chocolates.  Worse still, the store shelves are just full of rejected Christmas candy.  The selection of rejected Christmas candy just gets sadder and sadder as the days go by.  I know that New Years is technically in January, but I think another holiday is required.  Maybe some kind of escape from the cold winter days, or if you live in Australia an escape from the heat.

Snack Facts is back!  With the new year comes the return of Snack Facts, our Instagram feed.  Every day this week we'll be posting a fun fact about a particular snack, this week it's marshmallows.  We were inspired by a marshmallow roast we had recently.  Make sure to follow us on Instagram to get a daily Snack Fact (this week on the subject of marshmallows), if you don't use Instagram, you can also follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as well.

Today we post part 1 of our gummy review-a-thon.  It's been a while since we've done a review-a-thon, so we thought that gummies would be the perfect candy to focus on.  Today's gummy review is a little bit out of the box, or bag as would be more appropriate.  Make sure to check out our Facebook page, Twitter feed, Tumblr page, or any of our social media sites to keep up with this week's gummy review-a-thon.  You can also click here daily to read our latest review.

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Candy In The Media

If you want to get the full effect of this video, I recommend watching it while eating gummy worms.  It's just so much fun to eat a gummy worm while watching them get made.  This is not so true when it comes to watching chickens get made.  If you're watching a film about the life of a chicken, while eating a chicken, you'll just get really sad.

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Wish They Still Made It - Part 2 - Organic Candy Floss "Canadian Maple" by Pure Fun

Of all of the discontinued treats we're featuring this week, this is the one I'm most sad about.  The main reason I'm sad about this treat is that I'm most certain that I will never get to try this again.  Made by the Canadian candy company Pure Fun, this maple syrup cotton candy was perfect.  It was one of the most creative flavours of cotton candy that I'd ever tried.  I thought it was creative since cotton candy is essentially just spun sugar, it was really clever to use a different sugar to flavour it.  This leads me to wonder why we don't have a brown sugar or honey flavoured cotton candy as well.

The reason I'm sure I'll never try this again, Pure Fun the company that made it went out of business.  It's not that another company may not choose to try making this, I'm just not certain they can make it as well.  Having said that, if any candy company in the world wants to take on this challenge, please send me a sample and I'll be glad to take this all back.

Now here's my poem:

Maple cotton candy that's second to none,
Made by Canadians, known as Pure Fun.
Not pink, yellow, blue, but instead brown,
The king of cotton candy, you wear the crown.
I at a whole mouthful, I was in bliss,
Maple cotton candy, I will surely miss.

Click here to read the Candy Critic review.

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Wish They Still Made It - Part 1 - Mars Bar With Almonds

Everyday this week I'm going to look at a treat that is no longer with us, and let you know how sad I am that it's gone.  We're going to start with the Mars Bar with Almonds.  This was probably my favorite of all Mars bars, and one of the few instances where the special edition of a bar was actually better than the original.  This is why I don't understand why it's not made anymore.  They have released a Snicker's bar with almonds that's supposed to be similar to the Mars bar, but not exactly the same.  I haven't tried this Snicker's bar, but I can't imagine it being exactly the same as a Snickers bar is very different than a Mars bar.

I'm not sure exactly when this bar was discontinued, but it was a sad day in the candy world.  I hope that one day the folks at Mars will realize the necessity of having nuts in the Mars bar, and that Almonds are not only a creative choice, but a tasty one as well.

I've written a poem about the loss of this great bar:

Mars bar with almonds of which I am fond,
I'm really sad that you are now gone.
You gave a classic a wonderful crunch,
I could eat you for breakfast, or even lunch.
I have a dream on this very night,
That I could have even one more bite.

Click here to read the Candy Critic review.

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