The best candy brands to consider for filling your child’s Easter basket with treats that are delicious and won’t harm their health with toxic additives.
Teaching candy moderation with kids is high on the list of important health habits to learn.
I don’t think it is ever a good idea to let kids eat candy and sweets in an unrestrained manner even during a holiday like Easter.
An unbalanced approach to diet where candy is concerned can lead to sugar addiction issues later.
The goal is to choose whole food treats that are delicious, but at the same time, do not contain high fructose corn syrup, additives, chemicals, or artificial colorings/natural flavorings that could harm health.
I also favor putting just a few items in the basket even if all qualify in the “healthier” category. Why do kids need piles of candy?
With these goals in mind, below are the best candies to consider for Easter baskets (or any other appropriate holiday).
I’ve combed through all the brands I could find at my local health food stores, and here’s what I found!
Best Candy Brands
I’ve only found three candy brands that I feel 100% comfortable buying for my family.
While these are widely available commercial brands, if you have a local artisan making candy in small batches by hand, this would be another source to investigate in your community!
Raw Honey Mint Patties
Heavenly Organics mint chocolate honey patties have been a favorite treat of our family for many years. They contain just three ingredients:
Ingredients: Raw organic white honey, unsweetened organic chocolate, peppermint oil
Your family will be thrilled with them too. They taste fantastic!
White Chocolate Nut Butter Cups
Giving chocolate to children is certainly a controversial subject within the traditional food community.
My approach while my three were growing up was to let them have healthy forms of chocolate a few times a year. My goal was to not raise them in a bubble to avoid a boomerang effect later.
If your preferred approach is to not allow chocolate at all or to minimize it like we did, then these organic white chocolate nut butter cups are a good brand to consider for the occasional treat.
The presence of the roasted nut butter cuts down the amount of carbs in the candy significantly.
Heavenly Safe Chocolates
The Easter and other holiday candies from Heavenly Safe Chocolates contain only three ingredients:
Organic Cane Sugar, Unsweetened Chocolate, Cocoa Butter [nondairy]
My husband and I would get the Easter Bunny lollipop for our kids’ baskets once they were school-age.
None of them eat hardly any chocolate as adults, so a balanced “moderation is key” approach seemed to work well over the long term.
“Good” (but not “Best”)
These brands below are acceptable but not “best” as I feel they are too high in chocolate and refined organic sugar.
They also contain a few additives such as denatured milk powder, sweetened condensed milk, and/or food gums that are optimally avoided if a better brand is available.
Brands to Avoid
I used to recommend Yummy Earth lollipops, gummy bears, and similar candies.
However, further research on the dangers of natural flavors has caused me to reconsider this ingredient as actually safe.
“Natural flavors” aren’t really that natural after all! Worse, they contain highly toxic solvent residues when lab-tested!
Thus, I would suggest avoiding even organic candy brands that list any type of “natural flavors” on the label.
“Avoid” brands include:
- Honest gummies
- Annie’s gummies
- Yummy Earth
- Surf Sweets
- Smart Sweets
Have you found any other brand of candy that you feel is safe? Please share it with us!
Yum Earth (not Yummy Earth) is delicious, so I’m sad to hear about the natural flavors being something to avoid. Thanks for the info!
Yes, I was very sad about this too. So many brands getting cheapened over the past few years … possibly due to food inflation pressures. Read those ingredients … even brands that you’ve bought for years that were great when you first vetted them could no longer be acceptable.
Love the honey patties, those are a favorite!! We like to opt for Evolved Chocolate which also has white chocolate options, so cacao free. They have coconut sugar sweetened chocolate and monk fruit sweetened chocolate. Ingredients are organic. We like these a lot better than Justin’s for the kids. There is a lot of Jerusalem artichoke fiber in some of the white chocolate products though which can cause digestive upset if you eat too much, but overall the products are really great and clean.
Have you seen/tested the name brand, Joyride? They claim to be non-GMO but allulose is a listed ingredient which is GMO corn. Do you think that is to be trusted?
Allulose is a toxic sweetener. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/allulose-sugar/ Avoid candy that contains it!
Scrummy’s has delicious sugar-free caramels and jelly beans sweetened with allulose, Lily’s has chocolate sweetened with erythritol. Or make your own.
Allulose is a very unsafe sweetener! https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/allulose-sugar/
I just found out Justin’s is owned by Hormel. Ugh!
Reed’s candied ginger mostly, Taza chocolate disks, or 80% dark organic chocolate. We have no issues with chocolate. One small square for a craving is perfect, and we honor ourselves in the process, knowing our bodies know best. If it’s high quality, you don’t need to eat the whole package. One bar lasts several days.
I’m surprised to see the Justin’s White Chocolate Cups in the “Best” category due to the soy lecithin.
Justin’s contains sunflower lecithin (the white chocolate nut butter cups). There is a tiny amount of organic soy lecithin in the white chocolate. This is not problematic. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/soy-lecithin-healthy-or-unhealthy/
Always happy to hear alternatives to the ‘special treat’ garbage people seem to be ok with. It’s perplexed me for years that candy/sugar laden processed food is considered special. Definitely an advocate for games and reusable items.
My kiddo is allergic to chocolate and gets the ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ or ‘That’s too bad!’ all the time. Hilarious. She couldn’t care less and does not feel like she is missing anything. Because she is not.
I am conscientious and respectful of personal beliefs around this subject but always find it odd when I am the one judged for making healthier choices!
Oh well.
Thanks again for the information!