Chews Better has the following motto appearing on its packages and website: “The candy healthy people chews!” What? Aside from the hopeful claim about which candy healthy people chew, it sure looks like a grammatical boner. But have I misread the motto? Perhaps the motto’s last word isn’t a mis-conjugated verb, but a plural noun? If that’s so, then we’d have to read “candy healthy people” as an adjectival phrase to modify those “chews.” Does that work? What kind of chews would “candy healthy people” chews be? Beats the hell out of me. Thus I return to grammar police hypothesis number one: Chews Better has a screwed up motto. If they can’t edit, can they make candy?

Chews Better sent me two flavors: Pomegranate Blueberry Acai, and Strawberry Lemonade. And as the motto tried to communicate, these candies are meant to be healthy for you. They’re described as “All-Natural Chewy Candies with Vitamins and Fiber.” Surely this is making you nervous about the taste, right? Well, keep your beanie on straight.

Chews Better Pomegranate Blueberry Acai is a small, 26g (.9 oz) package. Each has five individually wrapped candies, and this flavor has 100% Vitamin C, 50% Vitamins B3, B5, B6, and B12, 3g of Fiber, and only 100 calories. Each chew is wrapped in silver and looks from the outside like a beef bullion cube. But it smells like a strong fruit medley upon unwrapping, and my nose finds this promising. Time for a bite.

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Continuing from where I left off, here is my next tasting of Brach’s penny candy products. This review focuses on the the fruit-flavored items they manufacture.

Brach’s Fruit Chews
Made with real juice for a fun, fruity flavor.

These are similar to a Tootsie Roll Midgee, in terms of size and shape.

Orange is reminiscent of sherbet. It has an incredibly soft chew, like biting into a marshmallow. The piece isn’t sticky, but the flavor is muted, missing the zest a true orange flavor packs.

Strawberry aims for the smell of ripe strawberries – it hits the mark spot on. The piece is chewier than the orange, but sill soft. Unfortunately, the strawberry flavor is not as evocative as the smell, further exacerbated by a waxy aftertaste.

Grape makes my nose think of grape Bubble Tape when I unwrap it. The piece is the chewiest of them all, but still soft comparatively to other chews, like a really soft Starburst. The grape flavor is artificial, tasting exactly like the grape Bubble Tape. In fact, I completely forgot these were fruit chews and not gum until I noticed the pieces had dissolved in my mouth.

My overall impression of these is that they are harmless, but avoiding providing any real substance; if there were a dish of these at a waiting room, people would only take a few.

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As much as I enjoy trying new candy, the oddest things can put me off from doing so. Sometimes I don’t like the packaging or the description appears unappetizing. For Starburst Baja California Fruit Chews, it was the flavor selection that disappointed me.

In theory, the idea of a set of flavors indigenous to Baja California sounds interesting, but I never considered any of the flavors on the packet that representative of the region. However, I have always been partial to one of the four flavors, so when a coworker offered me some pieces that she bought from the CVS across the street, I thought it was finally time to give these a try.

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I first learned about Mamba in high school. A friend of mine, who happened to be a vegan, was making her way speedily through a package of candy during English class. I rarely saw her eat candy as few are designed for vegan consumption.

My initial reaction was one of distrust. She had “shared” her vegan candy with me before, and aside from Jelly Bellys, I tended to dislike the products; however, the voracity with which she was consuming them made me think there might be something more to them than meets the eye. I asked for a piece and she reluctantly offered me a lemon fruit chew. From that day on, English class informally became “eat Mamba and try to learn Romantic poetry” class.

Several months ago, Mamba released a spin-off to the classic flavor set with a sour variety. I found them often living in Los Angeles and regularly consumed them there, but was unable to spot them with the same frequency in Texas. This past week, I finally saw them hanging out at a local bookstore. (Seriously, one, what is candy doing in a bookstore, and two, why is Mamba always around literature?)

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My previous exploration of Necco’s old-fashioned candy mix yielded a strike of gold with the Clark Bar. However, within that package were two other candies: Necco Wafers – more like coal than gold – and Banana Split.

I have heard of Banana Split and its counterpart Mint Julep, but never had the opportunity or desire to sample one. Like the Clark Bar, this candy is regional in its abundance, probably being highly concentrated around the Atlantic seaboard where Necco is headquartered.

Had these not been included in the bag of Clark Bars, I probably would not have bought them separately. But since they came along for my Clark Bar adventure, I thought I would give them a try.

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