Hey, Muskego: Is Your Trick or Treat Candy a Winner?

Muskego's trick or treat is officially Monday, October 31, and there's always someone to remind us about nutrition amidst the candy-palooza.

We ran across this 'food for thought' from Gloria Tsang, author of the new book Go UnDiet: 50 Small Actions for Lasting Weight Loss and founder of nutrition network HealthCastle.com.

According to Tsang, trick-or-treat doesn't have to sink your kid's health ship, especially if you pick the right candy.

"With big differences in calories, sugar, and quality of ingredients used, it's just not true that all Halloween candy is the same," Tsang says. "None of them are exactly good for you, but we've done some close analysis of common competitors to see which options are best from a nutrition perspective."

Here were some of the winners and losers of HealthCastle.com's candy comparison. Happy to see some of my favorites were considered winners:

• PayDay beats Reese Peanut Butter Cups: Reese Cups contain polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR), a commercial emulsifier used to reduce cocoa butter. Plus, PayDay is the only candy to list peanuts, not sugar, as the first ingredient.  

• Kit Kat beats Twix: They're similar in calories and sugar (and both include PGPR), but Twix’s ingredient list is surprisingly long. Even more surprising? Twix is marketed as a biscuit topped with caramel and chocolate, but there’s no caramel on the ingredient list.

• M&Ms beat Skittles: Both contestants in this classic Halloween showdown contain artificial colorings and wax. M&Ms at least offer a tiny amount of calcium and protein, and less sugar. 

• Baby Ruth beats Snickers: There's no real winner here – Snickers has partially hydrogenated oil, and Baby Ruth has high-fructose corn syrup and the preservative TBHQ. Snickers loses out simply because the portion is larger, leaving room for more calories. 

• Mounds beats Almond Joy: Mounds has a shorter ingredient list, and skips the partially hydrogenated oil found in Almond Joy. 

They admitted that it's hard to control what your kid brings home.  However, most parents (like me) tend to weed through the grand haul so the pumpkin is empty by Christmas. Leave the winners, in other words, and toss the 'losers.'