The Candy Hierarchy (2012)

By David Ng and Ben Cohen for BOING BOING

Candy culture plays a particularly prominent role during Halloween, especially in terms of providing what we describe as "joy induction." Consequently, the "Candy Hierarchy" is a concerted effort to provide systematics that define a candy taxonomy in order of desirability and with the expressed idea of maximizing such joy. Each year, through the tireless efforts by teams of researchers, the ranking receives peer review in the form of comments left. This brings new data that are then tabulated and incorporated into each revised edition.  

The Candy Hierarchy has been a work in progress since 2006 when initiated by B.R. Cohen, an environmental historian over at Lafayette College, and has since been published in a variety of venues.  In 2010, with collaboration from David Ng, a geneticist based at the University of British Columbia, the hierarchy established an exclusive relationship with the highly reputable journal Boing Boing. This then allowed a significant increase in feedback from the peer review community due to the journal's high citation index.  

We, the authors, have greatly profited from this peer community feedback. That is to say, we almost got rich — the Hierarchy was optioned by a few Hollywood types and months were spent in writers' rooms hammering out a pilot for NBC, before having the whole thing axed once it became clear NBC was not a thing anymore. But we got to keep the money.  And we bought candy with it. And now here we are.  So on with it already.  

Discussion: There comes a time, when we heed a certain call. When the world. Must come, together as one.  That time is now. We can't go on, pretending day by day, that someone, somehow will make a change. Therefore, presented within is the newly reformulated Ng and Cohen Candy Hierarchy. This taxonomy updates the 2011 edition, which culled massive peer review in the form of several hundred comments, and by including the latest research findings.  

As with prior iterations, we placed a high value on this process, since past attempts (see previous versions 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2010) produced noteworthy revelations, including establishment of reference samples, now understood as index candies, as well as the discovery of the importance of caramel in defining the upper tiers.    

Along with minor adjustments, two new broadly defined features stand out this year.  One is the discovery through spectral analysis of a mint-based layer (you can almost taste it just by reading it, right?); two is the demotion of American chocolate products from their prior (and erroneous) exalted placement near the top.  Clearly, that earlier placement was a remnant of North Ameri-centric cultural commitments that somehow (damn you post-modernism!) snuck in to the lab. We’d prefer to blame the children for this flaw, those doing the grunt work of tricking and treating, though we shouldn't — colleagues in biology recently confirmed that they are our future — but come on, it had to be their fault. So chocolate is all in a tizzy and the tectonic shift this year comes from a groundswell of new research coming from our international contributors, the basic thrust of which is that European chocolates embarrass Hershey's. (This does open things up to a probable adjustment next year to account for a global account, not just Western.) Hershey’s Dark Chocolate stands a chance, but all in all, the Cadbury’s, the Lindt's, the Nestle's, the Ferroroses of the world are the aristocrats to Hershey’s proletarians, the hoities to American toities, the Prince Williams and Harrys to our Prince Fielders and Bonnie Prince Billys. Having said that, it sort of doesn’t matter that much anyway.  Kids still won’t snag a Lindt Truffle before a Hershey's Kiss, so what can you do.  

Interestingly, this particular discourse led to heated discussions on the overall reliability of our peer review process.  If we could so easily miss the contrasting nature of North American and European perspectives, then might there be larger biases at play?    And then, literally at the very moment when our voices had reached an ugly and angry crescendo and fingers were pointing with blame, LIKE AN OMEN FROM THE HEAVENS (or at least somewhere approximating a breathtaking view of the Milky Way from Mars), we received word of a most relevant piece of research.  

Yes, it was research with real data, collected from real children.

And not only that, it clearly laid out, in a sort of pencilly scientific table kind of way, that only a paltry third of the participants queried even bothered to single out chocolate as a preference!  

Of course, we should note that these were Canadian children, so one could argue that the data is hardly what you might call trustworthy.  Nevertheless, if taken at face value, it would suggest that this Candy Hierarchy is a potentially invalid piece of work.  Or put another way, might we be witnessing a paradigm shift, perhaps?  

And so, let us also apply some caution to this current Candy Hierarchy, as well as offer a plea for more children-centric candy data.   This will be good for candy, good for science, good (dare I say) for the world, and certainly good for our continued search for a TV pilot since Disney or Nickelodeon might now take note.  

And please, please remember that we do this because this here is relevant stuff.  It affects the mindset of our planet, truly.  Indeed, it was only recently, that we learned that our Hierarchy has been applied to broader research programs.  Although we were not cited in this report, recent studies by Franz H. Messerli, M.D., show that those countries receiving more Nobel Prizes also eat more chocolate.  [from Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates (October 10, 2012DOI: 10.1056/NEJMon1211064), New England Journal of Medicine.]  But now in light of our new observations (albeit observations recorded with shaky handwriting and some minor spelling mistakes), we are forced to ask whether this research was performed under a chocolate bias paradigm and subsequent flawed methodology.  

In conclusion, then, and as we present this year's hierarchy, we can honestly say, without hyperbole, that this is the biggest, most significant categorization that has ever been created. Big and significant because there is so, so much at stake.  So remember, it's not your father's candy hierarchy.  It's your kids. Sort of.

 

The hierarchy is also available in PDF format for easy printing

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Once again with Halloween upon us, it’s time to revisit candy culture, or more specifically, a system that aims to rank it. Like before, the mechanism to do this would be according to, well, let’s just call it "joy induction."

This hierarchy actually began in 2006 as the work of a friend and colleague, Ben Cohen. Ben is an environmental historian over at Lafayette College, but in a previous life, he and I use to blog together. This partnership happened because of our backgrounds publishing science humor, and so in some respects, this "Candy Hierarchy" is just another creative juncture. However, since publishing the 2010 version at Boing Boing, we received such amazing feedback from the community, I thought it would be great to continue this tradition and allow even more kickass "peer review" into guide the rankings.

As always, I’m aware that: (1) some people will still be deeply offended by the rankings; (2) because the new rankings tried very hard to incorporate the feedback, you now know that we were serious about the potential for readers to shift the hierarchy year to year; and (3) above it all, we can all hopefully agree that the process of peer review is just kickass anyway. Anyway, do play in the comments, but without further ado, read on...

Discussion: Presented within is the newly reformulated Ng and Cohen Candy Hierarchy, which aims to rank Halloween candy recieved during trick or treating. This version is seen as an improvement of the 2010 edition, which culled massive peer review in the form of several hundred comments (pdf version of peer review available here).

Like before, we placed a high value on this process, as past attempts (see previous versions 2006 | 2007 | 2008) had produced noteworthy relevations, including establishment of reference samples, hereafter termed index candies, as well as the discovery of the importance of caramel in defining the upper tiers.

In its previous form, we were hopeful that some of the new potential advances in the hierarchy would be due to evaluating context setting. In our last report, we had suggested that "rarely in practice do eaters eat just one piece of candy. Anecdotal evidence indicates that, in general, eaters throw multiple pieces of Halloween candy down their gullets. (When so much is being eaten, research shows the Pelican-gullet-eating-fish imagery is apt.) It thus matters which are eaten earlier and which later. Some tests, for example, indicate that you can only consume so many premier grade chocolate based candies before you need the zip or zing of a Spree or a Smarty to 'cleanse the pallet'."

Indeed, from our data, we found that context was key. Perhaps most significant were frameworks that revolved around the geography of palates. Specifically, it was noted that there was a strong North American bias, which often led to heated disagreement. In light of this, we strongly suggest a parallel attempt at defining a Sweets Hierarchy to further explore global preferences.

Other noteworthy findings include:

(1) That despite various lobbying efforts, clear consensus within the peer review process was wholly absent. No agreement on any specific candy was represented higher than 5% of the total comments (although status of fresh versus stale versus fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls was especially hotly debated). Indeed, consensus was only noted in the following: that last year’s hierarchy, in a word, sucked. In fact, the word “travesty” and similar synonyms were uttered more than a few times (Koerth-Baker, 2010).

(2) That with current data, Candy Corn is impossible to rank. It is liken to the “String Theory” of candy: largely theoretical nature and difficult to pin down. In the hopes of moving forward on this strange phenomenon, we are currently exploring a grant proposal that would give us time on the LHC.

(3) That this study was a great portal to science culture in general. This was demonstrated by an example of scientific plagiarism (link), as well as the prevalence of scientist bias, because despite repeated commentary on the contrary, we stubbornly stand by our evaluation of Whoppers.

We also would like to suggest that a paradigm shift in this hierarchy is looming. Buoyed by an incident involving a Ouija board and what appeared to be the spirit of Thomas Kuhn (the board spelled, “S N I C K E R S F T W B U T P E E R R E V I E W N O T T E C H N I C A L L Y E X P E R T”), we were led to consider what exactly should pass as reasonable “peer review.” Here, it is our opinion that this may, in fact, be the views and opinions of children.

Consequently, we look forward to continued assessment of this 2011 Candy Hierarchy, fully aware and deeply respectful of the fact that this exciting field is still in its infancy.

THE CANDY HIERARCHY (2011)

TOP TIER


(caramel, chewy, oh my classy)

Any full sized candy bar^[1] — Caramellos — Milky Way — Snickers — Rolos^[2] — Twix — Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups — Cash^[3]

POST-TERTIARY

(not surprisingly, exclusively chocolate-based) 
Hershey’s Kissables — Peanut M&M’s — Regular M&Ms^[4] — Junior Mints — York Peppermint Patties — Three Musketeers^[5] — regular old Hershey Bars — Reggie Jackson Bar — Kit Kat — Dark Chocolate Hershey

SECOND TIER

(also exclusively chocolate, after fending off a few intruders) 
Nestle Crunch — Mounds — Tootsie Rolls — Whoppers^[6] — Fair Trade Chocolate^[7] — Butterfinger — Pay Day — Baby Ruth  — 100 Grand Bar — Almond Joy — Cadbury’s Creme Eggs^[8]

THIRD TIER 

(the chewy range or, in some circles, the Upper Chewy or Upper Devonian) 
Milk Duds — Benzedrine -- Jolly Ranchers (if a good flavor) — Candy Corn?^[9] — Starburst — Skittles — Stale Tootsie Rolls — Licorice (not black)

BOTTOM TIER 

(the Lower Chewy and Gummy-Based, also the Middle Crunchy Tart Layer) 
Dots — Lollipops — Nerds — Runts — Trail Mix —Swedish Fish — Mary Janes — Gummy Bears straight up — White Bread — Black Licorice -- Anything from Brach's^[10] — Hard Candy — Spree — Bubble Gum — Including the Chiclets (but not the erasers) — Black Jacks — LemonHeads — LaffyTaffy — Good N' Plenty — Jolly Ranchers (if a bad flavor)^[11] — Bottle Caps — American Smarties ^[12] — Chalk ^[12] — "those odd marshmallow circus peanut things" -- gum from baseball cards 

Tier so low it does not register on our equipment ^[13]

Healthy Fruit — Pencils [14]— Hugs (actual physical hugs)^[14] — Lapel Pins — Extra Strength Tylenol — "anonymous brown globs that come in black and orange wrappers" — Now'n'Laters^[15] — Whole Wheat anything — Those little Christian notebooks — Pebbles

Benjamin R. Cohen & David Ng

The hierarchy is also available in PDF format

1. Because like, score! (Bcsizemo, 2010)

2. These may be rolled to a friend.

3. Not sure if this should be included. Systematics are on this as we speak.

4. Includes comparable Commonwealth version of “Smarties.” (Devo, Legionabstract, gadgetgirl  et al, 2011) 

5. Although has also been classified as packing material (Cunning, 2010)

6. Whoppers blow.

7. The authors are curious as to which neighborhoods you belong to.

8. Could potentially rank higher if not for the possibility of them sitting on the shelf for seven months. Also doesn’t help that its interior could be described as “pustulent.” (Petersen, 2010)

9. Still no unanimous decision on the placement of Candy Corn, which as of 2006 remained unclassified, but as of 2007 had been tentatively placed in the Upper Chewy/Upper Devonian. 2008: no sighting. For now, we have elected to leave in the same tier as last year.

10. Unless it's something caramel, pronounced "caramel."

11. Remains an outlier, since it is in no way "chewy." Further studies have not resolved this inconsistency.

12. By some accounts, these two are actually one and the same (Gadgetgirl, 2010)

13. Yet some would be just as well to be left off. Bit-o-Honey, for example, might be called a lower tier member, but why bother? It says to your trick-or-treaters, "Here, I don't care, just take this." The lesson of Bit-o-Honey is: you lose. Goo Goo clusters, too. You're making a social statement--"I hate you and everything you represent"--when you give these out.

14. Additional research has further defined this relationship. Currently, it has been suggested that Blackwing Pencils > Hugs > Creepy Hugs > Pencils. (Lobster, Prufrock451, and Warreno, 2010)

15. Unless you eat them properly. To quote Anonymous, 2010: “The trick to realizing how brilliant and delicious Now 'n Laters are is a two step process. The first step is to carefully read the name of the candy. "Now 'n Later." What does it mean, you ask? Well, it implies that the candy will be different "now" (when you put it in your mouth) and at some point "later" in time. A small leap of logic takes us to the second step: be patient. You need to suck on it for a while until it softens. If you skip this step, the Now 'n Later will be an inedible, rock-like colorful brick quite worthy of the low end of the hierarchy. But if you are patient in your candy-eating process, oh the rewards you will reap!”

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