Candy facts

• About 65% of American candy brands have been around for more than fifty years.
• Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize.
• Halloween is the holiday with the highest candy sales.
• 90% of parents admit to sneaking goodies from their kids' Halloween trick-or-treat bags.
• Milk chocolate accounts for eighty percent of all the chocolate Americans consume each day.
• Less than 2% of the fat and 10% of the sugar in our diets are supplied by candy.
• The word "candy" began to be used in the late thirteenth century, coming into English from the Old French çucre candi, derived in turn from Arabic qandi and Persian qand, "cane sugar."
• A solid milk chocolate bar contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of decaffeinated coffee.
• The Halloween season accounts for 75% of the annual candy corn production.
• In the late 19th century, with the large influx of Irish immigrants into the U.S., Halloween became associated with ghosts, goblins and witches.
• Chocolate is not addictive.
• The first chocolate eggs were made in Europe in the early nineteenth century and remain among the most popular treats associated with Easter.
• 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are made for Easter each year.
• Outside North America, the generic name for candy is sweets or confectionery.
• Cacao is a Mesoamerican tree whose seeds are the source of cocoa and chocolate.
• Americans eat an average of 22 pounds (10 kg) of candy each year.