Hey, Cleanish Squad! Halloween is Saturday, and for a lot of us, this is where the slide starts. Halloween candy turns into Thanksgiving, which turns into December, and by January, it feels like it all got away from us.

It doesn’t have to go that way. Some candy is a better pick than the rest, and it comes down to how easy it is to stop. We sorted the candy bowl into three tiers and made a cheat sheet you can keep. We also looked at sugar-free candy, and whether it’s actually better for you.

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I used to come home from trick-or-treating with a full king-sized pillowcase. When I excitedly dumped it out on the kitchen floor, the only thing my parents checked was whether anything had been opened or wasn’t wrapped. I don’t know about other people, but my parents were way more worried about razors and drugs in the candy than what ingredients were actually in it.

I did my own sorting. Twix and Snickers went in the keep pile, along with anything chewy or sour. The Sweet Tarts, the peanut butter cups and the M&M’s I traded away.

I’ve always been a chewy and sour person. That hasn’t changed.

What has changed for me is that I started caring way more about the back of the candy wrapper.

Having some candy doesn’t have to wreck what you’re working on. Here’s how I think about it now.

Is any candy better than the rest?

There are a lot of ways to judge candy. You can consider grams of sugar, artificial dyes, how long the ingredient list is, etc. For this ranking, I’m sorting it by one thing: how easy it is to stop eating.

When comparing candy, the “best” of the bunch is anything with nuts or peanut butter in it, like a Snickers or a Reese’s. Why? The fat and the little bit of protein fill you up some, so two pieces actually feel like something and it’s easier to stop there.

Chocolate without nuts comes next, like Hershey’s, Twix and Kit Kat. It’s still mostly sugar, but it moves slower than pure sugar does.

Straight sugar is the bottom of the list. The chews, the sours, anything that’s basically just sugar and flavor. Think: Starbursts, lollipops, Sour Patch Kids, Jolly Ranchers, and Nerds. There’s nothing to fill you up, so it just leaves you wanting more. In fact, your body doesn’t give you much of a stop signal with straight sugar. It comes eventually, but it usually shows up as feeling sick, rather than feeling full (unless you’re using it for quick energy on a long hike or run).

None of it is health food, but some of it is much easier to set down.

Most of what’s printed on the front of a package is marketing, not information. Learn more here →

Get these three tiers plus the strategies for Halloween week. Download the cheat sheet →

Everything I like is at the bottom

My favorites are all at the bottom of that list. By my own ranking, I should be reaching for dark chocolate with almonds, and I’m reaching for the Sour Patch Kids.

I don’t use the order to pick for me. I use it to know what I’m dealing with.

How to handle Halloween week

There are a few ways to approach it, depending on how your brain works. Pick the one you’d actually stick with.

What doesn’t work is sitting with the bowl in your lap all week with no plan, eating candy you don’t even like, and then knowing after it’s over that you blew it.

This same 80/20 thinking works the rest of the year, not just at Halloween. Learn more here →

And don’t buy it early

The sales aren’t worth it. You buy four bags because they’re a good price, and that candy sits in your house for two weeks before a single kid rings the doorbell. You already know how that goes.

And if you’d rather hand out something cleaner, UNREAL is the one I’d point you to. Still candy, less sugar, real ingredients.

Buy only what you’re handing out. If you already bought it, get it off the counter. Move it to the garage, the top shelf in the pantry or the back of your closet.

Make a plan so the candy doesn’t make it for you.

Three candy bags can all say “sugar-free” on the front, and have almost nothing in common once you turn them over. Sugar-free only tells you what’s missing. You have to read the rest to find out what they used instead.

There are typically three answers.

Sugar alcohols. Maltitol is the one to know. It shows up most in gummies and sugar-free chocolate, it tastes close to sugar, and it acts a little like sugar too, so a bar built on it can still raise your blood sugar. It can also upset your stomach, and it doesn’t take much. Erythritol and xylitol are in this group as well.

You’ll find these in Russell Stover Sugar Free, Werther’s Original Sugar Free, Hershey’s Zero Sugar, Atkins Endulge and Zollipops, and also in Lily’s and Lakanto, which both use erythritol even though they’re sold as the clean option.

Bottom line: If your stomach is at all sensitive, this is the group to skip.

Fiber. Some bags use added fiber instead of sugar. But the FDA only recognizes certain fibers, and IMO, the one that shows up most in candy, isn’t one of them. That means the number of grams of fiber on the bag ends up higher than what your body actually gets.

This shows up more in bars than in candy, like Fiber One and Quest, and in the original SmartSweets before they changed the recipe.

Bottom line: If you can’t tell which fiber it is, assume you’re getting less than it says.

Allulose, stevia and monk fruit. These do the least to your blood sugar. This is where I land, and what I see as an actually decent option.

You’ll find these in SmartSweets, ChocZero and Behave, and not in much else on a regular candy aisle.

Bottom line: This is the best of the three, but it’s still candy.

One catch even there. SmartSweets has several recipes on shelves at the same time, so two bags of the same bears can list different ingredients and a different fiber count.

Yes, sugar-free is easier on your blood sugar, but it’s also harder on your stomach, and it still leaves you wanting the candy.

The FDA keeps the list of which fibers actually count. See it here →

83%

of parents admit they sneak chocolate and candy out of their kids' trick-or-treat haul.

Source: National Confectioners Association, "Candy Is the Star of the Halloween Season," September 2026

I didn't quit sugar overnight. I slowly swapped processed sugar for real sweeteners like pure maple syrup, raw honey and coconut sugar, until I wasn't depending on it anymore. It also helped me crave sweets less. Watch on YouTube →

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Seneca in Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 101

This was my very first recipe post, back in 2010. I made them for Dustin because he loves Reese's, and they quickly became a household favorite. Just dark chocolate, natural peanut butter and coconut oil, and they set in the freezer in about half an hour. Get the recipe →

I've spent years helping women live healthier while quietly hiding who I actually was. Proving Her Wrong is the part I kept quiet. New essays every Monday. Start with Sorry Doesn't Mean Much or subscribe free.

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