You’ll see Swiss conglomerate Nestle’s Milkybars in England just about everywhere. In the U.S., they’re much harder to find – even the Nestle USA website doesn’t list them anywhere. So when I saw one in World Market the other day, I snagged it. Even though I’m not a huge white chocolate fan, I’m curious to try this candy that’s so popular across the pond.

In keeping with recent trends to make foods with fewer suspect ingredients, Nestle makes a big fuss about the “all natural ingredients” in this candy, even explaining the ingredients in little parenthetical remarks. “Whole cow’s milk (that’s been dried).” Okay… thanks. Skeptics will reply that “milk” and “sugar” don’t reveal the whole story, since cows injected with antibiotics or sugar cane plants sprayed with pesticides lead to measurably unnatural byproducts (this is why organic foods can be safer and better tasting), but at least the artificial flavorings and colors are absent from the Milkybar, right?

Yeah, fine, but how about the taste?

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Rasinets are a candy that is completely lost to me. That’s not to say I don’t love chocolate-covered raisins, because I do, but rather that I don’t like to spend my money on them. I get plenty as gifts, and for some reason my Jewish family always has them in bowls for the plucking when we gather for the holidays. I consume enough of them without having to pay for them.

So when I was a kid and all my friends bought Rasinets at the movies, I went for the Sour Patch Kids and never really ventured past that comfort candy. I can easily claim I have more fingers than the number of Rasinets I have eaten in my lifetime.

Flash-forward to this year’s All Candy Expo, and lo and behold Nestle is debuting a new product – Cranberry Raisinets. Well, my first thought is it would be far catchier and there’d be fewer syllables if they were called “Craisinets.” My second thought is that these might actually be worth trying.

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Candy Addicts everywhere praised Nestle when it released its Nestle Crunch Crisp and Butterfinger Crisp, wafer spin-offs of the classic confections. It seemed only a matter of time until the gurus at Nestle decided to take their next most popular candy bar and give it a “Crisp” makeover.

That’s right. Baby Ruth. The All Candy Expo did not disappoint when I ambled by the Nestle booth and spotted this not-yet-released candy that is supposed to debut this year.

There weren’t any full-sized bars to sample, and I was only allowed to grab one snack-sized piece; luckily, the Expo is three days, and I was able to procure three of those small treats and report on them.

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Every year, on beaches throughout the world, female green sea turtles haul themselves up out of the sea and perform the laborious task of laying their eggs and burying them in the sand. After about 60 days, the eggs will hatch and the young turtles must scramble across the dangerous beaches in an attempt to reach the sea.

These are not those turtle eggs.

Instead, Nestle Turtles Eggs are based on the pecan and caramel-filled chocolate candies popular at dinner parties everywhere. Now, caramel eggs are a dime a dozen around Easter time (almost literally if you wait for the after-Easter sales to do your candy shopping). But add one of my most favorite nuts, pecans, to the mix, and you have yourself a winning combination. Turtles are one of the few mainstream candies that contain pecans, but their relative expense means I don’t buy them that often, so I was pleased to be able to score one of these puppies at post-Easter sale prices.

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Package disclaimer: “Not recommended for pregnant women, children, or persons sensitive to caffeine.” (This includes YOU, weird pregnant guy expecting your second kid in June!)

Huh? This is just wrong: A candy bar aimed straight at the shaved heads of wacky, Jack-Ass-style twenty-somethings. In this fast-paced and hectic age, do we really need more buzz? I guess someone thinks so.

The Nestle advertising blitz and buzz (can you sense the trend here?) features online videos of highly energized male and female actors playing the part of young adults shaving one another’s heads and spray painting stencils of the Butterfinger Buzz logo onto their freshly revealed scalps. The ads seem to shout: THESE COOL YOUNG PEOPLE ARE CRAZY AND YOU NEED TO HANG OUT WITH THEM RIGHT NOW!! A paintball gun is even used – that was crazy sick YO! No, just stupid. All this for a candy bar? And not a very good one? Come on.

At the very least, the campaign seems forced. Certain candy icons should never be messed with.

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