Full disclosure: I am a chocoholic, and I see no reason to be ashamed of it.

With that said, fruit snacks do not belong in my trick or treat basket. Okay, so I don’t trick or treat anymore, but when I buy a bag of Halloween candy at the store (…to give to trick or treaters, duh) I do not want to find fruit snacks in it. This is in reference to fruit snacks that disguise themselves as “candy;” otherwise known as Dots, produced by the Tootsie Roll Industries. My mother hates Dots, and refuses to eat them. My mother is a smart woman and I agree with her here. Dots are not candy, Dots are fruit snacks. Let’s compare ingredients, shall we?

Regular fruit snacks ingredients: fruit juice blend from concentrate (pear, apple), corn syrup, sugar, modified corn starch, 2% or less of: fruit pectin, citric acid, Vitamin C, dextrose, sodium citrate, vegetable and fruit juice added for color, malic acid, potassium citrate, mineral oil, natural flavor, camauba wax and beeswax.

Dots candy ingredients: modified food starch, sugar, corn syrup, malic acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavorings and colorings.

Dots have a shorter ingredient list, albeit very similar. This means that Dots are almost the same as fruit snacks, and (though most probably already know this) that fruit snacks are very far away from anything related to actual fruit. Dots and other products like Dots are often called gumdrops. In my humble opinion, this is the candy industry taking the cheap route out of giving you chocolate; they’ve renamed fruit snacks to sound like fun Halloween candy.

Wrong answer, Tootsie Roll Industries. Stop lying to me!

I understand some folks may not be as crazy about chocolate as I am. That’s fine! That is why we have Starbursts and Skittles. But stay away from this impostor candy called Dots. If the comparison above isn’t enough evidence for you to stay away, I’ll tell you from personal experience that the “lime” Dot tastes weirdly like mint. Ugh.