We all know that health plays a big role if you want to live a long happy life. And we also know that not every delicious treat contributes to our well-being. Snack by snack, sweet by sweet it can actually lead us down the short road – straight to diabetes and then … well to death. And also to the death and suffering of millions of animals. Let that sync in… Yes… Candy is evil.
So why is candy so evil and is there anything we can do about it? Should I never digest a jelly bean ever again? Should I lock up all the chocolate bars? How can I calm my nurse girlfriend when she comes home from a 12 hour night-shift of reanimating crazy half-deaf people. She needs chocolate! – We all do. Or should we just accept a sugar overdose related death? Is there another way?
Unhealthy Candy
First we need to understand what’s so bad about these delicious treats. There are various factors which make candy unhealthy:
- Crazy amounts of processed sugar
- Artificial flavorings, colors and preservatives
- Animal based ingredients
The addictiveness and high caloric content of sugar is the killer combo that leads to obesity. It is also proven that big amounts of sugar will turn off your immune system temporarily. Yikes!
Artificial flavors might be used to make up for the lack of sugar. Or to give that extra addictiveness or boost in taste. Artificial colors are used for that extra shine or for the unnatural radioactive neon glow. Artificial preservatives increase shelf life and ease conditions of transport. Any processed stuff is not good for you.
Using animal based ingredients like dairy, gelatin or beeswax is just unnecessary damage to our ecosystem. These also tend not to be the healthiest as they are fairly processed.
Why are we doing this? Why are we disturbing the bees and slaughtering pigs for candy? A big reason is that it’s cheaper to do it this way – a bigger buck in Mr Mars pocket.
Healthy Cruelty-Free Sweets
The truth is we all want to munch on something sweet while enjoying the movies or after a stressful day of slaying out there. As more people are becoming conscious of their choices – companies are following. There are more healthy vegan alternatives then ever. They might be a bit more expensive than non-vegan treats, but they are worth every penny. And they wont get you killed. We have field-tested and picked out the most healthier ones. When scouting for delicious treats we accounted for:
- At minimum has to be vegan and cruelty-free
- Low sugar content
- No artificial flavorings, colors or preservatives
- Higher than usual protein content
- Contains healthier than usual ingredients like: turmeric, ginger etc
- Medicinal health benefit such as: vitamin supplement (D3, B12), probiotic, prebiotic or other.
- And ofcourse has to be tasty 🙂
So the answer is: Yes – you can have candy. Just choose wisely and stock up creates of the good stuff, so you wont go crazy if it’s 2 am, Game Of Thrones just released a new episode and you have no vegan alternatives to binge on.
The Good
Here is our list of good vegan treats: