Hi-Chew is the New Great Halloween Candy

I know some college basketball teams are playing exhibition games right now, and I said I was going to do a preview, but that will have to wait until Monday. I want to wait until Michigan officially starts, and while they have an exhibition tonight, they officially tip off on Wednesday. So my men's NCAA basketball preview is coming, you'll just have to wait until Monday. Today I want to talk about a particular Halloween candy.

My kids went trick or treating on Sunday. We did it safely, and everyone seemed to have a very good time. The people we allowed in our house have been in our bubble, are vaccinated and are family. And pretty much every house we went to had the candy in a bowl outside on a table and most even had sanitizer. It felt safe. And after my kids were done, my son especially, they like to sort out all of the candy they received. I like doing this too. I did it as a kid. So I helped out my son and my daughter did not really care about doing it. She was happy with candy. So my son and I retired to the kitchen table and went through his stuff. He got a ton of candy. He even got full size candy bars, a first for him, and it blew his mind. He was literally acting like a kid in a candy store. So we put full size bars in one spot, peanut butter candy in another, fun size candy bars in a pile and gummy and chewy candy in another pile. It was great. And, like almost any parent, I decided that I wanted to taste test some of the candy he received. I had a few Snickers. He gave me a piece of one of his full size Kit Kats. I love Haribo Gummy Bears, and my son gave me a pack of those. It was great. But there is one candy he gave me that I do not really recall ever getting as a kid.

The candy he gave me was a piece of his Hi-Chew, and I was blown away. This was one of the best pieces of candy that I have ever eaten. It is like a softer, less sweet Starburst. When I got off candy to lose weight, Starbursts were one of the first to go. They’re pure sugar. But I did, and still do from time to time, miss that chewy aspect of Starbursts. Hi-Chew’s bring that tenfold. They’re very chewy. They last long. The flavor sticks around. It’s wonderful. What puts the Hi-Chew over the top though is the taste. While sweet, they’re not overly sweet. Starbursts, Skittles, Gummy Lifesavers, they’re far too sweet. I eat a few of those and I feel like I’m in sugar shock. Hi-Chew doesn’t do that to me. They’re a bit sweet, but they also taste like the actual flavor listed on the wrapper. Lime tastes like lime. Mango has that mango flavor. Pineapple is real close to an actual pineapple. But the strawberry ones, those are the best. They taste like actual strawberries, but it’s candy.

I’m really impressed with Hi- Chew’s. They are a great alternative to actual Starbursts. They’re better than Mamba’s. They’re much better than Skittles. I like them even more than Haribo Gummies, which I didn’t think was possible. I’m stoked that Hi-Chew is making a comeback, and the flavor is on point. My hat goes off to them. I can’t wait to eat some more when my son and I get some candy later tonight. Hi-Chew’s rule.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Nutella Filled M&M's? Yes Please.

Just like I wrote about yesterday, some days we get something that is so great, I just have to write about it. Today, my piece is food based.

I was scrolling around on Facebook and Twitter last night, and I saw something that made me very happy. Lately, when scrolling through social media, it is all bad, but this news last night was tremendous, and it actually made me smile. The M&M's company announced that they are about to release a new flavor of M&M's, hazelnut spread.

This is amazing.

These new M&M's might be the best M&M's, or maybe, just maybe, even the best candy that has ever been made. I have made it abundantly clear that I am a Snickers guy. I feel like Snickers is the best bite of candy that has ever been made. It has the perfect amount of salt and sweet. The people that have created Snickers have perfected the model. Snickers is the Diet Coke of the food world. But, these new M&M's have the possibility of maybe, just maybe, passing Snickers.

I love Nutella spread. It has passed peanut butter, jelly, basically any other spread that you can put on any food that offers a spread. I love how creamy and sweet Nutella is. I prefer a Nutella and jelly sandwich to a PB and J. I love putting Nutella on graham crackers. It makes everything it touches instantly better.

This isn't the first time M&M's have tried something different. In fact, candy companies do it all the time now. I am one of the people out there that like white chocolate. I like milk chocolate and dark chocolate better, but white chocolate is fine. But, when it comes to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, or Kit Kat's, give me their milk or dark chocolate variety. When it comes to Reese's, give me their holiday shapes in fact. Those are way better than traditional Reese's. The peanut butter to chocolate ratio on those is stupendous. Skittles, which I used to love, have tried this too. They made tropical flavors and sour flavors, and none of those were as good as Skittles. Starburst has done the same thing. Traditional Starburst are the best, and while I like when they do the all pink packs, or their tropical flavor okay, traditional Starburst reign supreme. And even M&M's have done this. In fact, I feel like they are the pioneers of this. Peanut M&M's are some of the best candies I have had. Peanut M&M's are second only to Snickers when it comes to that perfect balance of salt and sweet. Peanut M&M's are always a road trip favorite of mine. I also enjoy original M&M's. It is the classic candy. I'm a big time fan of almonds, so I do enjoy their almond filled M&M's. Peanut butter M&M's are my wife's favorite candy of all time. I enjoy them quite a bit as well. I like the coffee M&M's. My son and daughter love love love the caramel filled M&M's. Basically, whenever M&M's does a new flavor, it seems to hit.

This hazelnut spread M&M's may change the whole candy game. These things, I just do not see how it will not be a massive success. Just imagine the first time you try these how excellent these will taste. Taking that M&M chocolate and pairing it with Nutella, it is going to be a perfect marriage. I am going to absolutely devour these things when they are released. I haven't been this excited for a new candy since the peanut butter Snickers, which is wonderful by the way. I'm so stoked. I will most likely buy a new pack the day they come out, then I imagine I will most likely buy about 3 or 4 more after that.

This is awesome, and I cannot wait to try them. Thank you for this much needed great news M&M's. I appreciate it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He spends part of his day smashing interesting food items into his M&Ms. His greatest creation has been Snickers stuffed with almond M&Ms. Will this Nutella fusion be even greater? Time will tell.

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Quench Gum Still Exists and it is Still Awesome

Think of this, but in gum form

A few weeks back, when my son's school year ended, he told me wanted to go to a comic book store and the candy store as his "treat" for finishing out the year. I was pretty happy about this because it meant we got to go to The Loop here in Saint Louis. The Loop is a cool little strip of wacky and vintage clothing stores, art stores, record stores, great dining options, the best movie theater in the state, and of course, a comic book store and a candy shop. We went and did the comic book thing, and he was stoked. Me, I'm not a big comic book guy, but he loved it. After we finished up there, we headed over to the candy store. The place in The Loop is called Rocket Fizz, and it has all different kinds of candy. It has new stuff, old stuff, crazy sodas, with flavors like buffalo wing and bacon, it is just a cool, old school candy shop. They also sell old school concert posters, movie posters and they have those big cut outs of characters from popular movies that they sell as well. My son picked out a bag filled with a bunch of different salt water taffy, a solid choice, and my daughter wanted some Dots, an even better choice. I figured since I was there, I would indulge. I got myself a fancy root beer, some Altoid cinnamon mints, my favorites, and then I spotted something I thought I would never see again.

When I was a kid playing little league baseball, I used to chew Big League Chew gum. It made me feel like a major league baseball player. But, as I got older, I started to dislike the taste, and the powdered substance it left on my face was just ridiculous. I was in a local sporting goods store when I was about 10, and I saw this new gum called Quench Gum. It was essentially Gatorade in gum form. As I 10 year old that was all I needed to hear. I wanted that gum. I needed that gum. And my parents, being as great as they are, obliged and bought me some. I was hooked. It really did quench my thirst, I thought, and I chewed it all the time. It was so sweet and delicious and perfect for chewing during one of my games. I used to have packs and packs just stuffed into my baseball bag. My teammates loved it too, and we all started to choose Quench over Big League Chew.

By the time I was playing high school baseball, Quench Gum was gone, replaced by sunflower seeds. That was all I chewed for all 4 years of high school baseball. It was all about sunflower seeds. But, from time to time I would go to that same sporting goods store and ask if they were ever going to get any Quench Gum. I was almost always met with a blank stare.

This brings me back to Rocket Fizz. Not only did they have my favorite flavor of Quench Gum, orange fruit punch, they had all the flavors. I was so extremely happy. Now, I didn't go nuts and buy one pack of each, I just bought the orange fruit punch. The moment I got home I had to try it immediately, and I did, and I had the total opposite reaction as to when I ate that Hostess chocolate pie. Quench Gum was just as juicy and wonderful as I remembered it when I was 10. I was so happy. It was perfect. I chewed and chewed until it lost its flavor, which happens in about 5 minutes. But, those five minutes when the flavor explodes in your mouth, it is amazing. It really does taste like a sports drink. It really does quench your thirst. It does what it promises. With the losing its flavor after 5 minutes, so what. Fruit Stripes gum, which I also love, is the same. So is Big League Chew. Same with Bubble Tape or the single wrapped Bubble Gum flavored Yubba Bubba. The only gum that keeps its flavor is minty gum because it is supposed to. Gum like Quench Gum is meant to give you that immediate pleasure, go away, and have you coming back for more. It achieves that goal tenfold. I am chewing some while I type this, and I will probably chew some more when I go for a run later today. I love this stuff.

It was such a great surprise to see Quench Gum sitting on the shelf at this candy store. I will definitely be going back to get some more in the very near future. I do have to try all the old flavors now since orange fruit punch was such a hit. For now though, I will just enjoy this very delicious and wonderful and juicy and thirst quenching orange fruit punch gum. I am so very happy that Quench Gum is back in my life. What a treat.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was also looking for some candy cigarettes for his kids. He found none so he just sprang for the real thing.

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Ty says Boo-Urns to Halloween

AHHHHHHH

Today is Halloween eve.

I don't care for Halloween as I mentioned in my blog yesterday. Today, I'm going to give specific reasons why I dislike this "holiday" but, I'm also going to tell you things that I do enjoy about this time of year.

Let's get to the annoying stuff. First of all, adults dressing up in costumes. This is fine if you have kids and you dress as a family, I get that. For example, my three year old is going as the Hulk this year, so my wife is going as Catwoman, she's wearing kitty ears and will have a bit of face makeup, our three week old is going as a mini Catwoman, she has a sleeper with cats on it, and I'm going as the Punisher, I'm wearing a Punisher t shirt. This is fine in my opinion because, this holiday is for kids, and more specifically, toddlers. Toddlers like dressing up, going house to house showing off their costumes and getting candy. That's what Halloween should be about and parents dressing up with their kids is totally acceptable. The problem I have is the people in their mid 20's and early 30's, kid free, using Halloween as an excuse to dress slutty, offensive or down right stupid. I'm sick of young kids dressing like "sexy kitty cats", or "nurses". Look at the movie "Mean Girls", and you'll know what I'm talking about. These teens use Halloween as an excuse to dress inappropriate. Or, take Julianne Hough last year thinking it was okay to dress in black face because she went as Crazy Eyes from "Orange is the New Black". That's so wrong and extremely offensive on so many levels. Don't use Halloween as your excuse for being a racist Ms.Hough. And guys with their dumbass " God's gift to women" costumes or their "sexy firefighter" bull shit, give it a rest. You're all a bunch of douchebag wannabe frat boys and you make me sick. Halloween is for kids and candy, not for dumbass Millenials that need another excuse to get drunk and act like morons. Grow up.

I also am completely fed up with the stupid Halloween puns. If I have to hear one more time about"spooktacular" savings or "prices so low they'll frighten you", I'm going to destroy my television. I don't understand the marketing for this. Do they want me to be afraid that I'm going to save money? I thought that was a good thing. I've also been watching a lot of Food Network with my wife who's on maternity leave. They have a show called "Chopped" and instead of sticking with this name, which is a pretty good name for a cooking show, they've been calling it "Choppedtober". That doesn't make any sense. Why add tober because it's October? Why don't they call it "Choppedgust" in August or "Choppedcember" in December? Why does October and Halloween only get this treatment? It's totally baffling and pretty god damn stupid.

I also don't enjoy being frightened and I hate scary movies. I've been to one haunted house in my entire life and I had to remove myself from the situation almost immediately because a worker dressed as a clown scared me so much, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I'm terrified of clowns and during Halloween, people dressed as clowns, especially creepy clowns, scare me more than anything I've ever encountered in my life. I don't like that people prey on other people that are scared of certain things by dressing in a costume as someone's fear. That's the worst thing about haunted houses. They're designed to startle you, and who really likes being startled? It doesn't feel good. And scary movies, no thank you. This is pretty much the same thing as haunted houses. I know that they're fake, but it doesn't change the fact that they scare me. I saw the "Shining" once, at a sleep over when I was a teenager and that movie still haunts me to this day. My wife suggested we watch it during the day on Halloween and I immediately said no. There's no way I'm going to watch that movie because I know the consequences that will come afterward. I'd much rather watch something like "Cabin in the Woods" or "Evil Dead". Sure, those movies are scary, but they're also campy and hilarious. I don't like straight up horror movies. Never have and I never will.

Now there are some good things about this time of year. First of all, the candy. My god it's everywhere, and 90 percent of it is delicious. Give me a Reese's pumpkin or any kind of chocolate treat and I'm happy as a clam. I love all candy this time of year except for the most foul, grossest shit ever created, candy corn. I also really like pumpkin seeds and I love pumpkin pie. Those are two great things that come out this time of year. My wife loves the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks and that's only available through November. I love the season. Leaves are falling, there's a nip in the air and it's a good time to be out doors. We get a new "Treehouse of Horror" this time of year, as I explained yesterday. We also get to turn back the clocks one hour, gain that extra sleep, and have shorter, colder days. I like this.

There's a lot of bad, but there's also some good. I may hate Halloween, but at least Thanksgiving, Christmas, cold weather and family gatherings are right around the corner. As a lady on a recent "Chopped" said, "my favorite part about Halloween is November 1st". I whole heartedly agree with her and I love this sentiment. Only two more days until this dumb "holiday" is over.

We've almost made it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. His fear of clowns was reinforced by a bean bag toss board painted like a clown and a faulty laser tag gun. Ask him all about by following Ty on twitter @tykulik.