Candy Blog

Have you ever wondered why it is that when you buy a box or bag of candy containing an assortment of flavors/colors (i.e., Skittles, Dum Dum Pops, gummy bears, salt water taffy, etc.), the ratio of your least favorite flavor/color to favorite seems like 10:1?

For example, when I smuggle in a box of Dots at the movie theater, I feel like I’m eating 10 lime Dots for every cherry.

Since it was a slow Saturday afternoon at the Gillerlain corral, I decided to test Murphy’s Law.

I picked up two of each of the following candies: Jujyfruits by Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company (7.8-ounce box); Starburst by Mars Snackfood US (4-ounce box); and Chewy Spree by Wonka (1.7-ounce bag).

I dumped out the candy and started sorting by flavor/color. After much computation (I’m still not using my college calculus), here are my key findings:

- None of the boxes/bags of candies had a uniform number of flavors/colors. (In the photo above, the Starburst box on the left contained seven strawberry pink pieces, the other had two. One bag of Chewy Spree held four cherry red pieces, the other had seven.)

- When comparing like candies, no two boxes/bags had an equal number of pieces. (One box of Jujyfruits contained 80 pieces, the other had 75 pieces.)

- It is possible to strike gold. One of my boxes of Jujyfruits harvested 30 cherry red pieces and only 11 lime greens.

Based on my mind-numbing experiment, it appears to be luck of the draw as to which specific flavors/colors you’re going to get in any one container of candy. And, if weight has everything to do with the number of candy pieces per box or bag, some pieces must be smaller than others.

Bottom line: If you’re smuggling candy into a dark theater, bring a tiny flashlight to navigate around unfavorable flavors and colors. Better yet, smuggle in two boxes for better odds … or bring on the Goobers.