Oh, sweet, tooth-rotting pleasure. I can feel the tingle of decay from years past just thinking about Easter. And apparently for good reason. It’s all about the sweets, baby.
According to the National Confectioners Association, Easter ranks second only to Halloween when it comes to sales of confections — also known as candy.
This is the organization that runs a survey polling whether people would prefer a real or chocolate bunny on this holiday. (It found that 82 percent of those polled would rather have a chocolate or candy bunny instead of the fuzzy kind. But it begs the question: Did they explain that people wouldn’t have to eat the live bunny?)
Anyway, can’t say that I’m stunned by Easter’s candy fix. It’s a sweet-tooth holiday. But a few other statistics I found from the group were astounding: 90 million chocolate bunnies are made for the holiday each year; 5 million marshmallow chicks and bunnies are produced each day while gearing up for Easter; and 16 billion jelly beans are brought into the world.
Sixteen billion! That’s a lot of sugar.
Why is Easter all about the sugar?
I remember once as a kid getting a sugar egg — it was almost as large as a football and hollowed out inside. In there, if I recall correctly, there was a sugar bunny in what looked like swimsuit model pose. Not sure exactly where my grandparents got the questionable egg, but I do know it had only two ingredients: sugar and Super Glue. I assume the glue was to hold it all together because it was rock hard and wouldn’t chip if you threw it against the floor or dropped a safe on it.
In fact, about the only thing you could do with it was use it like a salt lick. I looked like a camel running my tongue over the outside until I had rubbed it so raw I couldn’t go on any longer.
“Boy, this is great,” I remember thinking as the bandage was applied to my shredded tongue. “Next I’m going to get a funnel and pour sugar straight down my throat.”
My teeth looked like Swiss cheese after that one.
On Halloween, at least you had to work for your candy. Not so on Easter — they just give it to you. Lots of it. Marshmallow Peeps? What the heck was a Marshmallow Peep? I hated those things. But people love them. I found a Web site from the company that makes them where you can vote on whether you like them fresh from the package, or aged like a fine cheese. One option is “The longer they age, the better! More than 6 months!” What is wrong with the world that there are Marshmallow Peeps connoisseurs? Do they sniff them like fine wine and eat them with caviar? (They might.)
There’s a Peeps fan club and more than 200 Web sites devoted to the colored marshmallow chicks and bunnies. The company says that all the Peeps eaten on Easter could circle the planet. Now, that’s just ridiculous, and a little scary.
Size also matters. On Halloween, candy is small and in bite-size pieces. But on Easter, you get chocolate bunnies the size of a horse. Not hollow — we’re talking about a block of solid chocolate. You eat that whole thing and you are literally going to the hospital.
Why no moderation? Why so much sugar? Why don’t I have any of this candy at my house?
Maybe it’s time to slow up on the candy, folks. I’m not all that religious, but if memory serves, Easter is about more than just chocolate bunnies and future root canals. Find some meaning — whatever that might be — and for goodness sake, lets not eat all those 16 billion jelly beans in one sitting. And don’t let Peeps circumnavigate the world. Who knows what trouble they could get into.