Ricardo Lozada
Eng 101
May 19, 2011
The Truth About Candy
Many believe that candy is just a tasty sugary flavored treat. However, it turns out that
this innocent treat can be deadly. Candy in ancient times and food, have negative effects on the
human body as it can cause illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, high blood levels as well as
debility diseases. In addition food-coloring use in candy can cause cancer. One affect can lead to
sugary heaven or a literal sugar coma. Some candies are easy for kids to choke on becoming a
target cause for children’s death. Many people believe that one of the many cause of diabetes is
candy because its associated with blood sugar. However, that’s not entirely true about diabetes.
The bright side of candy is the pleasure it gives people no matter what ages they are. Some
candies are actually healthy since most of them contain milk, cream, fruits, nuts, and flavoring.
In this article, the truth about this sugary sweet will be revealed.
Diabetes is a illness that sends chills through peoples spines. They automatically
associate sugar with diabetes, but this is false. Individual’s diagnosed with type 1 diabetes,
means that their bodies can’t fabricate insulin anymore. The insulin-making cells in the
pancreas begin to die down causing the body to have an imbalance of insulin cells. This is true
for type 2 diabetes also, but there is an association linking type 2 diabetes and being overweight.
With type 2 diabetes, the pancreas can still make insulin, but the difference is that the insulin
does not work properly. Too much foods containing a high dose of sugar like candy or soda can
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and will cause weight gain, eventually that individual will be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. But
this does not mean sugar is completely eliminated from a diabetics diet. In their daily diet,
diabetics can have a controlled amount of candy, like wise, for non-diabetics because of the
simple fact that all candy has calories and none of them have sufficient vitamins. Not only is
diabetes the worst association with candy, it also is now viewed as being one of the leading
causes of obesity.
The epidemics of obesity and other illnesses are accusing candy as being one of the
leading causes. According to the New York Times “A cluster of new studies suggests that people
who regularly work out don’t need to worry unduly about consuming fructose or other sugars. In
certain circumstances, they may even find the sweet stuff beneficial.” The truth of the matter is
candy isn’t harmful to us, but rather the intake of candy. There is a thin line between the intake
of sugar and sugar itself. Not only is candy a good thing to eat while being under control, but did
you know that we humans are not the only ones who like candy?
There’s an article written by John Carson where he talks about a finch that uses candy to
attract a female finch to mate with. This was all possible because the finch saw the locals in the
town make some coffee like always, but what these people didn’t know is that the finch was
actually observing them to see where they kept the sweets. Now you may think to yourself “wow
did these people know the finch was there” and no they had no clue he was there. But the
question you should be asking yourself is how did he attract the female finch? He did it by
stealing some sweets from town, and then put it near his home (nest) and within a few hours the
female finch comes out of nowhere and moved into his nest. On the other hand, candy does in
fact have a nasty side. Did you know that a study was done about tamarind candy?
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Back in 1999, a study was done about “tamarind candy” which was a possible source of
lead exposure to a child who showed considerably a high blood levels. This caught the attention
of the Oklahoma City-County Health Department. They tested about two types of “tamarind
suckers” candy. They also tested the packaging for any type of lead content. According to the
article, “more than 50% of the tested suckers exceeded the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) Level of Concern for lead in this type of product”. People from all over the country found
out about this and began to keep an eye out for these poisons lead- contaminated candies. This
costs the candy industry to tip over for a while. This particular candy, “tamarind candy”, had to
bring back all of their candies from the stores to make sure no one else would get harmed. Being
careful about where the food comes from is highly important, because it can easily be
contaminated. Food coloring is another reason why some candy has gotten such a bad reputation.
Some food colorings have been alleged to be somewhat carcinogenic which means
causing cancer such as red #3, but on the bright side, some foods have removed it from their
ingredients. As a matter of fact, in Europe these food colorings have been banned completely.
For example, candy gets its color in America by using red 40. While in Europe, it gets its color
with real food coloring. According to Tom Laskawy, who wrote an article called “Food Coloring
is Bad”, “the syrup in a strawberry sundae from a McDonald's in the U.K. gets its red color from
strawberries; in the U.S., the red color comes from synthetic Red 40.” Now, industries are trying
to use more natural coloring for instance, orange soda will now be made with actual oranges,
strawberry syrup will now be made with real strawberries. With the upcoming years, the use of
real food coloring will be more common in food production.
The history of candy takes us back to ancient people who had enjoyed the sweet taste of
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honeybees. With these natural workers, we manage to make an even sweeter honey which we
later called jam. Once we developed jam we began to take our experiments to the next level. We
began to roll up nuts and fruits together in jam. According to the book Sweets by authors Gold,
Sara F.,Chenoweth, Emily, Zaleski, and Jeff “the manufacturing of sugar began during the
middle ages and at that time sugar was so expensive that only the rich could afford candy made
from sugar.” Something that is taken for granted today was a luxury. Cacao, from
which chocolate is made, was rediscovered in 1519 by Spanish explorers in Mexico. The value
of industrialized sugar was much subordinate by the seventeenth century when hard candy
became an immediate fan favorite. This led us to have over four hundred factories in the United
States producing candy by the mid-1800’s. How sweet it is that none of us went through all that
trouble all we have to do is sit down crack open a candy bar and enjoy life as we know it.
In conclusion, candy has many different affects on human bodies. Some are a dream
come true and others are a nightmare on Elm Street. We have come a long way from the infant
stages of candy. We have to keep in mind that candy can be dangerous and we shouldn’t be
glutens with this tasty treat. On the other hand, how could you resist that sweet taste of niter?
this is a video of maple candy <iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r62frHB3EHI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
this is a link
