Trader Joe’s just dropped what should have been a harmless candy, sweet and sour gummy worms that are sugar-free and made with fruit juice. But instead of just hype, the internet is treating these gummies like a public service announcement.
And for a good reason.
Each serving of just eight gummy worms has 14 grams of fiber. That’s already a lot, but the entire bag weighs around 70 grams. For context, most people only need about 25 to 38 grams in a full day. So people are definitely finding out the hard way.
On TikTok, creator @minnaleejamison didn’t hold back, joking that the gummies are “basically like Miralax in a gummy worm” and saying they should come with a warning sign. She admitted they smell good and taste decent, but the fiber content alone was enough to make her pause after just one.
Meanwhile, @lithuanianizzy took things to another level and turned it into a full experiment, eating the entire bag within 24 hours. At first, it seemed fine until it wasn’t. “I have been farting like crazy,” she said, hours spent documenting the side effects in real time. By the next day, she reported multiple bathroom trips, eventually rating a “10 out of 10” in consistency. In the end, she said the gummies basically helped her have more regular bowel movements, but the journey there was very real.
And it’s not just TikTok. Reddit is also deep in the conversation.
In a thread under r/tjcrew titled “new gummy worms,” user komqru posted an image of the nutrition facts, commenting ”I’m utterly baffled by how much fiber is in these things, almost double what’s in our fiber bars and HALF the daily value lol!”, while another user bluntly added, “it taste like an edible but instead of getting high you get diarrhea,” highlighting the mix of surprise and concern many shoppers are expressing about the candy’s unusually high fiber content.
So what’s actually going on?
The gummies use sugar alternatives like allulose, erythritol, and monk fruit instead of regular sugar. That’s how they keep the sugar count at zero, but those ingredients combined with added prebiotic fiber can seriously affect digestion. Too much fiber at once can lead to bloating, gas, and urgent bathroom trips.
The real issue is how easy it is to overeat them. The bag is small, the worms are bite-sized, and nothing about the packing screams ”this might mess you up.” So people are going in thinking it’s just candy and coming out with a very different experience.
Brands are pushing “better for you” versions of classic snacks, but sometimes those swaps come with side effects that aren’t super obvious. And thanks to social media, people are testing them and warning everyone else almost instantly.
So if you see these gummy worms on your next Trader Joe’s run, just know they might taste good, but the internet has already done the experimenting for you.
And the main takeaway? Read the label, or at least don’t eat the whole bag in one sitting,