Healthy Food Choices: Candy

Cocoa is an antioxidant in dark chocolate that can help reduce your risk to cancer. Learn more about candy and satisfying your sweet tooth in this healthy shopping video.

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High in calories
Low in nutrition
Cocoa is an antioxidant
Citrus fruits

About this Author

Alice Merritt is currently the Campus Dietitian at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She has a masters degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in public health with a concentration on nutrition. Alice has worked as a registered dietician for four years, and believes that helping people reach their nutritional goals will lead to a long and healthy life.

ALICE MERRITT: Now I am going to talk to you about candy. We all get a sweet tooth every now and then and candy is okay in moderation. One thing to be careful of with candy is that it tends to be high in calories and low in nutritional value which means for the calories you are eating you are not getting a lot of vitamins and minerals. Some candy such as dark chocolate, you may have heard of that they do have some health benefits. Dark chocolate has cocoa in it which has been shown to be an antioxidant to help reduce cell damage and reduce the risk of cancers. The higher percentage of cocoa in chocolate or dark chocolate, the more the benefit. So you want to look for dark chocolate that are at least 70% of cocoa. Other things that you can do as helpful ways to satisfy your sweet tooth is eating things like pineapple or citrusy fruits to kind of give you that sweet fruit taste after a meal. Important things to remember about candy is that it is okay to have in moderation. But if you want to have more sweet things more often, try to choose healthier options like I have mentioned dark chocolate, cocoa being a good antioxidant source. You can also choose more citrusy fruits, pineapples. And remember that candies typically are empty calories which means you are not getting a lot of nutrition value for them. So everybody gets a sweet tooth, it is okay to have some sweets but just remembers--moderation. These are some healthy tips to remember when eating candy.

Healthy Food Choices: Candy Video

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