Guest Post: M&Ms

My cousin Matt wrote a guest post for Food Thoughtz. Even without having read the entire post, I already know it is the worst because M&Ms are not very good. They're not terrible, but they're not very good.

This is my first Food Thoughtz guest post, and I want to us to get something straight:  M&Ms are the best.

Seriously, M&Ms are the perfect chocolatey candy, and I could eat them by the bucket.  Did you know that Amazon.com sells a 1.6 kilogram (that's 56oz or 3.5lbs if you think base 10 measurement systems are voodoo) bag of M&Ms.  I'd only need to buy 54 bags and I could eat my body weight in M&Ms.  I'm seriously considering it.

It's not just that the M&M is voiced by Billy West.  That's a selling point, sure.  I'll eat any candy that's voiced by Billy West.  If Billy West starts voicing candy corn and licorice, I will start eating candy corn and licorice.

Billy West: Candy Salesman

After 70 years of fine food engineering, the Mars corporation has managed to strike a perfect balance between candy and chocolate.  The thin candy shell of the M&M gives it an initial sweetness when you put it in your mouth that gives way to the savoury deliciousness of its chocolate innards when your resistance gives and you finally bite down.  The chocolate inside an M&M is of unusually high quality for inexpensive, mass-produced sweets.  It tastes like real chocolate, not like the waxy brown substance one sometimes encounters in inferior mass-market chocolate bars.



Compare the perfect balance of the M&M to its closest confectionary relative, the Smartie (sidebar:  M&Ms started as a Smarties clone.  Forrest Mars Sr. Witnessed soldiers in the Spanish Civil War eating Smarties, and after returning to America, began producing his own candy-covered chocolates in 1941).  Smarties are a fine treat, don't get me wrong.  They'll do in a pinch.  But their candy-chocolate ratio is all wrong.  They're too wide, too thin, their chocolate core too insubstantial.  Like Who Wants To Be A  Millionaire, Christopher Hitchens, and democracy, the Americans imported something from Britain and  perfected it.

There are two chocolates in a candy shell,
So always be ready to tell,
M&M from the imposter,
Manufactured in Gloucester, 


Don't be deceived by the Swiss Candy Cartel


I haven't even touched on all the variations:  There's Dark Chocolate M&Ms (sublime), Peanut M&Ms (perfection), Peanut Butter M&Ms (heaven), Pretzel M&Ms (I don't even know, I've never eaten them), and plenty of region-specific variations to boot.  Sometimes, when I'm feeling cheeky, I go to the bulk foods section of my local grocery store, completely disregard the sign warning “DO NOT MIX BULK FOOD ITEMS” and fill a single bag with as many M&Ms variations as I can find.  A bag full of these colourful little gems is as close as I've found in this world to the physical incarnation of joy.

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Food Thoughtz Brain Thoughtz

Okay, now I have read the whole thing, and I can say with even more certainty that it is the worst, principally because it calls out Smarties as being inferior chocolate-candy sweets. Umm, no. They're not. Or at least they weren't. When Smarties were still made with artificial colours, they were untouchable. Matt talks about the ratio and shape being off, but it is (was) so perfectly on point. In fact, I've always had the same complaint about M&Ms: there's too much chocolate, they're too round, and the shell is too thick. And the shell doesn't even taste good. I also always thought it was really stupid that their slogan was "melts in your mouth not in your hand." Excuse me, of course they actually do melt in your hand. They're made of chocolate. If they didn't melt in your hand, why would you want them to melt in your mouth? I guess that the point of the slogan was that they're so delicious that you can't keep them in your hand long enough for them to melt. But you can, and I did. Whatever. I'm tagging this as "Food I Have Tried But Would Not Try Again" (although, truth be told, I do really like Peanut M&Ms). - FT