If you’re asking yourself, I wonder if Peeps are good for me?, I refer you to the words of George Carlin: “You know an odd feeling? Sitting on the toilet, eating a chocolate candy bar.”
That wasn’t the quote I intended to use, but it made me laugh so I left it in. When I finally found the words I thought I was looking for, I discovered I’d remembered them wrong, so that quotation won’t be making an appearance here, either.
But let’s take a moment to reflect on the original question. Are Peeps good for people? If you mean, “healthy”, nope, absolutely not. How could they be? Those adorable marshmallow beauties largely consist of a little food dye, a dab of gelatin, and sugar, sugar, sugar with sugar on top. They carry no nutritional value. This means if you have babies, and those babies come to you, wanting Peeps for supper instead of broccoli, you must tell them to eat their veggies. If they intend to indulge in sweets as their meal, they’ll have to wait until they get older.
I am older. Old enough, anyway, to go on the occasional candy binge. Ryan Gosling said, “Sometimes I think that the one thing I love most about being an adult is the right to buy candy whenever and wherever I want”, and Ryan and I are on the same page with this. Glynn is, too, which is why we try to enjoy a package of Peeps every Easter.
This year, when we discovered three-packs of especially fancy Peeps at our local supermarket, we knew we had to take things further. We decided to have a Peep-Off. We’d never had one before, so we set some rules. We’d each indulge in one peep from every package, rate the candy on a 1 to 10 scale, compare notes, and share our opinions with the world.
Which is you. If the rest of the world has failed to stop by this blog to get the sugar lowdown, shame on them.
If you consider the above picture, you’ll see our contestants for the challenge. There was the (1) Vanilla Caramel Brownie Filled Delight; (2) the Strawberry Dipped in Decadent Cream-Flavored Fudge Delight; (3) the Cherry Limeade! Sour Cherry Dipped in Lime Fudge non-delight; (4) the Raspberry Dipped in Decadent Cream Flavored Fudge Delight; and (5) the Triple Chocolate Filled Delight.
We didn’t know why the Cherry Limeade Peeps received an exclamation mark -- ! -- instead of the Delight connotation, but we both felt it was an ill omen. We wondered if the Peeps legal team had refused to sign off on Delight-ing the Cherry Limeade! Peeps because they were so terrible.
When we tried the Cherry Limeade Peeps, what did we find? Not the worst Peeps of this bunch. The red and green color combination was cute, they smelled nicely lime-ish, and they tasted okay. They weren’t wonderfully yummy, but not yucky, either. We rated them a “6”, since I pegged them at a “5” and Glynn wanted a “7”.
The rest of the treats we scored the same.
The Strawberry Delights looked prettier in the package than they did on the plate. They had a strong but very artificial strawberry smell, and the strawberry/white fudge combo didn’t go together well. They were the least liked Peeps of the day, rating a “3”, which says something. Peeps should never be a “3”.
The Raspberry Delights? Not a true delight, but better than the Strawberry. The raspberry smell wasn’t as overwhelming, the color combination was interesting, but the fudge tasted a little off. We discovered, whenever there was white fudge at the bottom of a Peep, we were about to be disappointed. It always tasted nasty. The Raspberry was a “4” on both of our sheets.
I’d counted on the Triple Chocolate to be good, since chocolate is good all by itself so triple chocolate had to be amazing, and I was mostly right. The Peeps were very chocolatey and in the best way. A “9”. I’d be happy to find them in my Easter basket this Sunday.
I’d be even happier to discover the Vanilla Caramel Brownies in that basket, but I’d have to fight Glynn for them. These were some of the best Peeps either of us has ever enjoyed. There was just enough filling to make our tongues happy, and the combination was wonderful! A solid “10” from both of us, despite the fact that they were the least appealing visually. The marshmallow was very wrinkly: “old man” Peeps. We didn’t care the moment we popped them into our mouths.
The takeaway from all of this? Triple Chocolate and Vanilla Brownies: good, Raspberry and Strawberry: bad, and Cherry Limeade: eh. As they say in the advertisements, your results may vary. (I had to put that in for the sake of the Peeps lawyers, but it’s nonsense, really. Your results will be exactly the same as mine. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you about Peeps before?)
That wasn’t the quote I intended to use, but it made me laugh so I left it in. When I finally found the words I thought I was looking for, I discovered I’d remembered them wrong, so that quotation won’t be making an appearance here, either.
But let’s take a moment to reflect on the original question. Are Peeps good for people? If you mean, “healthy”, nope, absolutely not. How could they be? Those adorable marshmallow beauties largely consist of a little food dye, a dab of gelatin, and sugar, sugar, sugar with sugar on top. They carry no nutritional value. This means if you have babies, and those babies come to you, wanting Peeps for supper instead of broccoli, you must tell them to eat their veggies. If they intend to indulge in sweets as their meal, they’ll have to wait until they get older.
I am older. Old enough, anyway, to go on the occasional candy binge. Ryan Gosling said, “Sometimes I think that the one thing I love most about being an adult is the right to buy candy whenever and wherever I want”, and Ryan and I are on the same page with this. Glynn is, too, which is why we try to enjoy a package of Peeps every Easter.
This year, when we discovered three-packs of especially fancy Peeps at our local supermarket, we knew we had to take things further. We decided to have a Peep-Off. We’d never had one before, so we set some rules. We’d each indulge in one peep from every package, rate the candy on a 1 to 10 scale, compare notes, and share our opinions with the world.
Which is you. If the rest of the world has failed to stop by this blog to get the sugar lowdown, shame on them.
If you consider the above picture, you’ll see our contestants for the challenge. There was the (1) Vanilla Caramel Brownie Filled Delight; (2) the Strawberry Dipped in Decadent Cream-Flavored Fudge Delight; (3) the Cherry Limeade! Sour Cherry Dipped in Lime Fudge non-delight; (4) the Raspberry Dipped in Decadent Cream Flavored Fudge Delight; and (5) the Triple Chocolate Filled Delight.
We didn’t know why the Cherry Limeade Peeps received an exclamation mark -- ! -- instead of the Delight connotation, but we both felt it was an ill omen. We wondered if the Peeps legal team had refused to sign off on Delight-ing the Cherry Limeade! Peeps because they were so terrible.
When we tried the Cherry Limeade Peeps, what did we find? Not the worst Peeps of this bunch. The red and green color combination was cute, they smelled nicely lime-ish, and they tasted okay. They weren’t wonderfully yummy, but not yucky, either. We rated them a “6”, since I pegged them at a “5” and Glynn wanted a “7”.
The rest of the treats we scored the same.
The Strawberry Delights looked prettier in the package than they did on the plate. They had a strong but very artificial strawberry smell, and the strawberry/white fudge combo didn’t go together well. They were the least liked Peeps of the day, rating a “3”, which says something. Peeps should never be a “3”.
The Raspberry Delights? Not a true delight, but better than the Strawberry. The raspberry smell wasn’t as overwhelming, the color combination was interesting, but the fudge tasted a little off. We discovered, whenever there was white fudge at the bottom of a Peep, we were about to be disappointed. It always tasted nasty. The Raspberry was a “4” on both of our sheets.
I’d counted on the Triple Chocolate to be good, since chocolate is good all by itself so triple chocolate had to be amazing, and I was mostly right. The Peeps were very chocolatey and in the best way. A “9”. I’d be happy to find them in my Easter basket this Sunday.
I’d be even happier to discover the Vanilla Caramel Brownies in that basket, but I’d have to fight Glynn for them. These were some of the best Peeps either of us has ever enjoyed. There was just enough filling to make our tongues happy, and the combination was wonderful! A solid “10” from both of us, despite the fact that they were the least appealing visually. The marshmallow was very wrinkly: “old man” Peeps. We didn’t care the moment we popped them into our mouths.
The takeaway from all of this? Triple Chocolate and Vanilla Brownies: good, Raspberry and Strawberry: bad, and Cherry Limeade: eh. As they say in the advertisements, your results may vary. (I had to put that in for the sake of the Peeps lawyers, but it’s nonsense, really. Your results will be exactly the same as mine. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you about Peeps before?)
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