These Are The Worst Candies Ever Made

We love candy. Whether you get it in a Halloween candy basket or when you leave your local doctor's office, it's always a treat. Except when... it's not. For every Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or glorious Almond Joy, there is a not-so-tasty counterpart that we wish had never been dreamt up. So, we decided to compile a list of the candies that we should have never had to try. Whether you were introduced to these at school, through your parents, or in a goody bag after a child's birthday party, there's a good chance you were less than impressed.

Look, not everyone is going to agree with every item on this list. You may love some of the candies that we lambast on this page. But, as far as we're concerned, this is a definitive list of the worst candies ever made. The next time you start to dig into anything that appears on this list, you may want to rethink your candy-eating strategy.

This is hardly a hot take. Who actually likes candy corn? In fact, we've probably all heard that old wives' tale about how they only made one batch of candy corn, which is then collected from the dumpsters to use again year after year since nobody actually eats it.

But apparently, that's not true. These candies have allegedly actually been in production since the 1880s, according to Always a Treat. That's a lot of time to be producing a candy that not many people want to eat. The company that we now know as the makers of Jelly Belly candies started the trend and has continued to make these little morsels of tastelessness for more than 100 years.

Our gripe about them? They don't really taste like anything. Sure, they're sweet, but there's not that much else there. When you add in the half sticky, half grainy texture, it makes it hard to eat a whole piece of candy corn without feeling slightly nauseous. Yes, it might look good in a decorative bowl on your kitchen table right before Halloween. But, when the season passes, you can throw that candy corn straight into the trash.

Ahh, who can forget Smarties, the candy treat that you got in every grab bag ever? In fact, for many of us, they seemed to appear exclusively at schools and birthday parties. They're little rounds of sugar and food coloring pressed into what actually looks like a pill. Perhaps it's no surprise then that kids started taking them like drugs.

Well... kind of. Back in 2014, USA Today warned parents that kids were crushing up Smarties and snorting them. The concern wasn't just the fact that kids essentially looked like they were preparing for the big leagues when they decided to administer their candy nasally. It was also patently unhealthy, which should come as no surprise. One Rhode Island middle school warned parents that snorting Smarties could potentially "lead to infection, laryngospasms, and even maggots."

Why would a child risk an internal maggot infection instead of just eating this fruit-flavored tablet-like candy? Well, perhaps that just goes to show how bad Smarties really are. If your preferred method of delivery for a candy isn't oral, it's probably one that you should pass up altogether.

Milk Duds pretty much explain it all just in the name alone. If you're already calling your candy a dud, what do you expect other people to think about it? In fact, the candy is so hated that Today even posed a question in a headline reading: "Are Milk Duds the worst candy on earth?" It's not a good sign if that's a question you even have to ask.

Twitter users apparently had different opinions about whether Milk Duds are, in fact, the worst candy in the world. One user, though, had this to say about the candy: "People who like Milk Duds wear their mask with their nose out." (Note: Your nose shouldn't be sticking out of your mask.)

Another had this to say about the typical Halloween treat: "Those little yellow boxes of Milk Duds bad people gave out at Halloween were a bottom three candy, the ones you only ate when everything else was long gone. Terrible."

While some Twitter users disagreed and said that they actually enjoyed Milk Duds, they were certainly in the minority. After all, if you want a candy that tastes like chocolate, why on earth would you ever choose a Milk Dud?

We usually only see Peeps peep their beaks out of the candy aisle in the spring right before Easter, and for that, we're grateful. Why? Because these cute-looking marshmallows unequivocally taste like trash. Let's be honest. Your grandma just bought them for you to put in your Easter basket because she thought they were cute. Nobody expected you to eat the pure sugar-infused marshmallow made to look like an innocent baby chick.

The Guardian notes that, while there is a sense of nostalgia that comes with eating these treats, it's not worth it when you consider the actual taste. The article actually compares the sugary treats to pink slime. Despite the author of this article claiming to have "a sweet tooth that is any underemployed dentist's dream," they still find that every spring, the candies "appear with their jaunty colors and baby animal shapes — like the blackest clouds from an April shower ready to rain on my parade."

We couldn't agree more. If you want to get the flavor of Peeps without spending the cash and without enjoying how cute the edible baby animals look, you're better off just choking down an entire spoonful of sugar and calling it a day.

Ah, Dots: the candy that you sadly eat as a last resort when you have already exhausted the actually tasty options from your Halloween candy haul. If you weren't familiar with their taste the first time you tried them out, you could mistake them for a delicious candy. Will they be delightful sour or fruity and sweet? Their colorful hue makes them appear promising. But, as soon as you take your first bite, you recognize these candies for what they are: glorified plastic-y sugar, with hardly any flavor.

A writer from Thought Catalog certainly didn't mince words when they expressed their intense dislike of the well-known but not-so-well-thought-of candy: "I don't know a single person who eats and enjoys Dots un-ironically. If I were given the ability to make my worst enemy eat a single food for the rest of their life, I would make them eat Dots, because I'm a vengeful and opportunistic person and because Dots are that disgusting."

Do we really have to say more than that? Stay away from these tiny boxes of candy crime if you actually want to enjoy your cheat day treat.

It seems like there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the little bagged red fish-shaped candies. Some people love them, and to be honest, we can't figure out why. Sure, if you want your candy to take like medicine and make you feel nauseous at the same time, then Swedish fish might be for you. But with so many delicious gummy treats out there, why would you succumb to the sadness that is a bag of Swedish Fish?

A Reddit thread reveals the many differing opinions when it comes to this classic Swedish treat. For some, the candy evokes a sense of nostalgia, and they can't get enough. For others, they're considered complete trash.

But for those of us living in the U.S., we might be missing out on the real thing. One Reddit user helpfully mentioned that, "Hey, the American version is kind of bland in its taste, try the Swedish version and it will blow your tastebuds' freaking mind!"

On our first trip to Stockholm, we will be sure to give these guys another chance to see if they taste better in their homeland. Until then, whenever we see the American version, we can't help but grimace.

You may love licorice, but we're not alone in rating it as one of the worst candies out there on the market. In fact, there could even be a scientific reason why so many of us have an aversion to the stuff, especially black licorice. (Yes, we'll eat some Twizzlers when we're desperate and craving sugar. We've all been through a breakup before.)

According to NBC News, some of us get an unpleasant taste from black licorice for a reason: "When we bite into a piece of licorice, we taste glycyrrhizin, a natural sweetener in licorice root, which can taste, to some, like saccharin, the artificial sweetener found in Sweet 'n' Low. With licorice, this sickly sweet lingers, causing some to wrinkle their noses in displeasure."

If you're someone who likes desserts that are on the sweeter side or you're more used to eating artificial sweeteners, you may absolutely love the taste of licorice. But some of us have an excuse for turning our nose up at the stuff whenever we see it grace a grocery store shelf or candy bar at a birthday party.

Look, we've all had our low moments. We're not going to pretend that we have never dug into a bag of chocolate Tootsie Rolls, eating one after another, lamenting the life situation in which we had found ourselves. But, if you're in a good place in life, there's no way you're going to reach for a Tootsie Roll when you have any other alternative.

Our problem here is that Tootsie Rolls can't decide what they want to be. Are they trying to be chocolate? Because they offer none of the satisfying creaminess you get from a chocolate bar. Are they trying to be toffee? They don't have the richness of the sugar you'd get in a toffee, though they do stick to your teeth in the same uncomfortable way that would probably make your dentist cringe. Are they trying to be a hard candy? Then why can you bite into them, and why do they melt so fast if you just try to suck on them?

In our opinion, Tootsie Rolls have been in the midst of an identity crisis for years. When they decide they want to fully embrace their chocolate roots, then we might return to them with a slightly more optimistic outlook.

We've already discussed the near-universal hatred of the despised candy corn. But, did you know that there is another sweet whose haters rival even those of candy corn? Welcome to the corner of the internet with a deep, burning hatred for the circus peanut, a concoction of orange food coloring and enough sugar to induce diabetes in high-risk individuals (this isn't an factual medical statement but more the feeling eating circus peanuts evokes. But, I mean, too many of these could conceivably lead to diabetes for real, so be cautious).

An Odyssey Online writer was not shy about their disgust of the inexplicably orange candy. They pose the question: "Why are they flavored like bananas?" And that's a great point. We get why you wouldn't want to make them actually taste like peanuts, but artificial banana is perhaps the most obnoxious and over-the-top flavor out there, so... why?

What's even worse? They're also available in other colors and flavors. If you ever see these in your local grocery store aisle, our thoughts are with you. Just back away from them as quickly as you can and rush to the high-quality chocolate aisle instead.

We know that not everyone will agree with this assessment, and that's okay. Truthfully, when it comes to the worst candies out there, a Milk Chocolate Hershey's Bar definitely isn't the most awful option in the world. It's chocolate, after all, and it's kind of hard to dislike any type of chocolate.

We dislike this candy not in and of itself but in its relation to other available chocolate out there. These days, grocery stores often offer a wide range of chocolate products, many of which could be described as gourmet. You can get sea salt and almonds in your chocolate, you can get the darkest of the dark chocolate, you can even get chili in your chocolate if you like a punch of spice. So why would you settle for the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel chocolate that is a Milk Chocolate Hershey's Bar?

If you're under ten years old, we get it. Eat all the Hershey's you want. Once you've grown up, though, it's time to try a more sophisticated chocolate bar. Trust us, you'll be thankful in the end.

For full transparency, we didn't always hate Fun Dip. To be completely honest, it doesn't really taste bad if you have an appetite for stuff that's mouth-puckeringly sour (and we do). We also loved the fact that you could get so many different flavors of Fun Dip, according to Snack History, which meant that you could branch out and try something new while still knowing you were going to get a relatively tasty candy.

So, it's not really the flavor of this candy that throws us off. The problem, rather, is the delivery method. If you've ever eaten Fun Dip before, you know it comes as a powder and a stick made out of hard, compacted sugar. The idea is to lick the stick to get it moist and then dip it in the powder, bring the powder to your mouth, and then go back in for another dip.

Looking back on our childhoods, we realize that this method of eating candy is, in fact, disgusting. Just imagine how covered in saliva that little sugary stick can get. Since nobody ever we knew even ate the stick, it would often just sit there in the dust of the real candy, moist to the touch and probably crawling with bacteria.

The problem we have with jawbreakers is similar to the issue we have with Fun Dip: It's just a gross way to eat your candy. These are candies that are specifically made not to be bitten into, unless you hate your teeth. Instead, the only way to get the flavor from the things is to start licking at them. For the smaller ones, the process is just a nuisance. It takes way too long to get through the whole thing, but if you like the flavor, it's not such a big deal.

The real problem comes in when you start indulging in the huge jawbreakers. These are impossible to eat in one sitting. So, what do you do? If you're like a lot of kids who are determined to get through the entire thing, you save your spit-laden jawbreaker in a plastic baggy until you're ready to start eating it again.

If you don't see a problem with returning to a saliva-engulfed piece of hardened sugar day after day, all while allowing it to sit in a Ziploc bag overnight, then eat your jawbreakers to your heart's content. For us, on the other hand, we'll have to pass.

Despite the fact that Good & Plenty is one of the oldest branded candies in the United States, according to Hershey's, we don't have to like it. In fact, we can't stand it, and neither do legions of others who hate the taste of licorice, which is basically what these absolute worst candies are in another form.

You already know our stance on licorice, so it's no surprise that we can't stand Good & Plenty either. What makes it even worse than licorice is the fact that, not only does it taste like medicine, but it actually looks like medicine, too. How the marketers convinced children to take something that looked like an antibiotic and tasted like the nastiest cough syrup we've ever had is beyond us.

With a black licorice interior and hard sugar capsule on the outside, the brightly colored white and pink candies just aren't for us. Luckily, you don't see these bad boys much of anywhere besides movie theaters these days, so at least they're less of a hazard now.