Candy Corn Is Officially the Worst Halloween Candy, According to New Survey

People love to hate on candy corn. Lewis Black has a whole rant about how bad it is. Never has something so small and innocent been vilified like candy corn has been. I personally like it! It's fine. It reminds me of Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. Sure, there is candy I would definitely prefer to eat on Halloween. But what's so bad about candy corn? 

Everything, apparently. And now it's official: Candy corn is America's least favorite candy. How do we know this? Well, CandyStore.com has done a very thorough survey, and the results don't lie. 

CandyStore.com was on a mission to discover the top ten worst Halloween candies, and the top ten best. Their methodology was pretty airtight, too. They looked at existing Halloween candy rankings from sites like BuzzFeed, Business Insider, Huffington Post, and Bon Appetit. 

Then, they surveyed over 40,000 of their own customers. These are people who buy candy from CandyStore.com, so they know what's up. There were spreadsheets involved, the lists were weighted, and after way too much work and way too much math, these evil geniuses had it: The official lists of the ten best and worst Halloween candies.

And candy corn was the worst of them all, knocking last year's winner (loser?), Circus Peanuts, down to number two. I'm not surprised. Candy corn gets a lot of hate, and I think some of that hate comes from bandwagoners who just want to seem cool for hating candy corn. There, I said it!

The top ten worst candies were an interesting bunch. Besides candy corn and circus peanuts, it included Bit o' Honey (sticky! delicious!), Good & Plenty (not good, plenty gross), Licorice (black licorice gets a bad rap, but it shouldn't!), Smarties (chalk you can eat), Tootsie Rolls (boring, basic, but edible), Necco Wafers (chalk you can eat that somehow also breaks your teeth), Wax Coke Bottles (ew), and Peanut Butter Kisses (photo below).

Peanut Butter Kisses are these generic taffy-like things that come in orange and black wrappers. I always assumed they were salt-water taffy, which I hate, but if I knew they were sticky peanut buttery treats similar to Mary Janes, I would have loved them!

As a candy aficionado, I have to say that I would eat any of the candies on the worst candy list if they were offered to me (except maybe Good & Plenties. Black licorice is fine, but don't coat it in chalky grossness). Having almost any candy is better than having no candy at all, you feel me? 

But then we get to the top ten list, the best Halloween candy that your dumb costume can buy, and we're reminded how good good candy really is. 

The ten best Halloween candies in descending order, according to CandyStore.com's extensive research, are: Hershey Bars (basic, but chocolate, so yes), Skittles (taste the rainbow!), Sour Patch Kids (watermelons are better, tbh), Butterfinger (yes, until they changed the recipe), Nerds (eh), M&Ms (they have a special place in my heart for life), Kit Kat (plain, but delish), Twix (not normally my choice, but a good get on Halloween), Snickers (YUP), and number one? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The one candy to rule them all. 

Does this ranking seem accurate to you? I feel like there are worse candies out there than some on the worst list, and better candies than some on the best list, but these are the ones that people have the strongest opinions about, and that makes sense to me. 

I for one was always happy to get a Peppermint Patty or a Charms Caramel Apple lollipop in my trick-or-treating haul. And worse than any of the Halloween candy on the list were the houses that gave out raisins or pretzels. So just remember these lists when you're out buying candy to give to trick-or-treaters this year. You don't want to end up on the blacklist of Halloween houses.