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| Pasta with cauliflower and bell peppers |
Food Diary (October 31, 2011)
Breakfast: Rolled oats with raisins, coconut, sunflower seeds and flax seeds
Lunch: Pasta with cauliflower and bell peppers
Dinner: Sourdough toast
I made a guilt free (or guilt less) sugar free version of coconut chocolate oat squares simply by replacing sugar with honey. Those things are delicious and addictive.
If you live in Sweden and are interested in testing a new range of sliced cheeses from Emborg please click here.
Today's Favourite Photo
Soy cured snapper with green pea cream
Today’s Favourite Blog
A very interesting list of facts relating to Halloween candy:
1. Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween. That’s the same as 16 billion fun size Snickers bars. Imagine every American purchasing about 50 fun size snickers bars during Halloween.
2. 90 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during Halloween week. in comparison almost 65 million pounds is sold during the week leading up to Easter and only 48 million pounds during Valentine's week.
3. Over 10 percent of annual candy sales happen the days leading up to Halloween -- that is nearly $2 billion dollars in sales. The highest candy sales in a year is on October 28th. The top five candy selling days are all in October.
4. Chocolate is clearly the preferred choice of sweets for many. Of the 1.9 billion sold in Halloween candy each year, $1.2 billion was on chocolate candy and only $680 million on sugar candy.
5. The average American household spends $44 a year on Halloween candy.
6. The top selling candy is Candy Corn. Americans purchase over 20 million pounds of it a year. After Candy Corn, the leading best sellers are as follows: Snickers, Reese's, Kit Kat and M&M'S.
7. Candy Corn is the most searched for candy term in Google, more popular than candy apples, gummy worms and candy pumpkins. Searches for Candy Corn are up 10 percent from October 2010.
8. This Halloween more people are searching for gluten-free candy than sugar-free candy. Google searches for gluten-free candy are currently 20 percent higher than searches for sugar-free candy.
I wonder how much candy gets wasted. Probably not much since candy keeps for a while, or gets finished quickly, unlike pumpkins. The above facts are for the US. I don’t know to what extent Halloween is celebrated globally. It is celebrated in Sweden and right now candy manufacturers have probably forgotten the term "economic crisis". Candy is really cheap and because of that I ended up eating more candy (mainly chocolate) last week than in any other week so far this year. I had to make my own little contribution to national statistics!
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Wow. That's a lot of candy. Really a lot a lot a lot of candy.
ReplyDeleteNo fair! I'm missing out :P
wow, i love how ppl are choosing to look for GF candy. its a good thing that the demand is there. its a sad thing that it's becoming such a huge issue for people. :T
ReplyDeleteI got hyper just reading that list. Halloween's pretty blah over here, maybe a little more happening in the expats community. Besides, the deepavali fireworks haven't stopped since weds and that would have scared all the ghosties away!
ReplyDeleteI have just noticed some of your dishes could qualify for the "dissociated" diet! I have a friend who practices it whenever she feels she has taken on some kilos and apparently it always works. If I remember well it's the diet practiced by the French President and his wife :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm too weak to separate proteins and carbs...
Hannah: yes you are missing out but you can always remedy this quite easily:)
ReplyDeleteJunia: I was surprised that GF sweets were so highly searched
ping: I forgot about Diwali, I guess most people had their fair share of sweets already, two weeks in a row can be a bit challenging, or maybe not!
Sissi: its the first time I have heard about dissociated diet. I just read some articles about it, quite interesting. Eating only fruits one day, carbs another day etc can be a bit challenging. Many carbs contain proteins anyway - regular flour has about 10% etc
Love the Halloween candy facts...but I'm still a little shocked that candy corn is #1...that is one nasty candy (fun for decorating, but not so great to eat). In our neighborhood, Reese's and 3 Muskateer bars disappeared faster than M&Ms and Skittles :)
ReplyDeleteThose chocolate coconut oat goodies sound super! I want to make some now :D
ReplyDeleteHope you had a happy treat filled halloween!
*kisses* HH
Those are some pretty amazing Halloween stats! 600 million pounds! No wonder the US has a weight problem!
ReplyDeleteMr. Three-Cookies, the dissociated diet I have meant (and the only one I have heard about) is not combining proteins and carbs, but only in the same meal.
ReplyDeleteFor example you can have pizza, but without cheese, pasta with vegetables, but without meat, etc. and apparently that is what the French presidential couple do (and my friend too).
Too difficult for me even to test for one day.
Dizzying Numbers! I was definitely part of the 600 million pound purchasers---we had over 300 kids trick-or-treat at our house last night.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! now I have a tummy ache!
ReplyDeleteIncredible facts
Mary x
I can't even fathom that much candy! I had no idea the numbers were that high. Wow.
ReplyDeleteLizzy: I have never tried candy corn, sounds ‘special’!
ReplyDeleteHeavenly Housewife: thank you, hope the same for you
Parsley Sage: no wonder!
Sissi: I read so many different versions of the dissociated diet. Some seem more interesting (and practical) than others.
Nancy: wow, that’s a lot of kids
Mary: oops, sorry!
Mary: me neither, they were really high
This year was the first year I resisted buying any Halloween candy. I'm pretty proud of myself!
ReplyDeleteWow thats an unbelievable amount of sugar.
ReplyDelete