Best to Worst Easter Basket Treats « Healthy Recipe Doctor

Pick your Easter basket poison. Are you partial to the marshmallow or peanut butter eggs or the milk chocolate bunnies…or, are you a Peeps person? What’s the best way to approach your Easter basket, knowing you’re going to indulge to some extent?

Of all the Easter basket options, these are the best to worst Easter treats. Where does the regular hard-boiled egg fit in to this table? With 70 calories, no sugar and 4.5 grams of fat, you’ll find it somewhere between the Sugar-Free Peeps and the Elmer’s Toasted Marshmallow Egg.

Easter Treat	Calories	Sugar (g)	Fat (g)	Saturated Fat (g)
Bubble King Bubble Gum Eggs	15	4	0	0
Peeps Sugar-Free Marshmallow Chicks, 3 chicks (28 g) NOTE: each serving contains 23 g sugar alcohol	60	0	0	0
Hard boiled Egg (Silver lining-6 g quality protein and all sorts of vitamins and minerals)	70	0	4.5	1.5
Elmer’s Toasted Marshmallow Egg (21 g)	80	14	2.5	1.5
Sugar Free Russell Stover Jelly Beans (40 g) 35 pieces NOTE: each serving contains 30 g sugar alcohol	110	0	0	0
Starburst Sour Jelly Beans, 1/4 cup	160	30	0	0
Peeps, 5 chicks (42 g)	140	34	0	0
Cadbury Crème Egg (34 g) (Silver lining-4% Daily Value calcium)	150	22	5	3
Almond Joy Egg, (31 g) (Silver lining-1 gram of fiber)	140	14	8	6
Peanut M&M;’s Bunny Mix 1/4 cup (Silver lining-1 gram fiber and a small serving of peanuts)	220	29	6	5
Whoppers Robin Eggs (40 g) 8 pieces	180	29	6	5
Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bunnies (34 g) (Silver lining-1 g fiber, 8% Daily Value Calcium)	170	19	10	6
Nestle Crunch Nest Eggs (37 g) 5 pieces (Silver lining-4% Daily Value for Calcium)	180	20	9	6
Hershey’s milk chocolate Eggs (40 g) 7 pieces (Silver lining-1 g fiber, 8% Daily Value Calcium)	200	22	12	7
Dove Dark Chocolate Eggs, 6 foil Wrapped eggs (43 g) (Silver lining-3 grams fiber)	220	20	14	8
Cadbury Mini Crème Egg (36 g)(Silver lining-4% Daily Value calcium)	170	23	6	4
Dove Truffle Egg (25.5 g)	150	13	10	7
Hershey’s King Size Marshmallow Egg (67 g) (Silver lining-4% Daily Value vitamin A and Calcium)	260	38	8	4.5
Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg (34 g) (Silver lining-1 gram fiber)	180	15	11	3.5
Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, little Foil wrapped ones, 5 pieces (38 g) (Silver lining-1 gram fiber)	190	18	12	6
Hershey’s Bliss Milk Chocolate Eggs 5 pieces (39 g) (Silver lining-1 gram fiber, 6% Daily value for calcium)	200	20	13	8
Dove Solid Milk Chocolate Egg—6 oz, 1/3 egg (56.5 g)	307	31	19	10.5
1/2 bunny (2.25 oz) (Silver lining-1.5 grams fiber)	345	36	21	12
Reese’s Reester Bunny—5 oz 1/2 bunny (2.5 oz) (Silver lining-2 grams fiber)	340	38	20	9

The bottom line to enjoying Easter candy is moderation. Keep certain Easter candy principles in mind before proceeding with your Easter basket massacre:

Never eat the whole chocolate Easter bunny in one sitting; the nutritional totals are likely to shock you. The entire 6- ounce Dove bunny or egg, for example, totals 920 calories, 56 grams of fat, 32 grams saturated fat, and 92 grams of sugar. You can break off the piece you want and keep the rest in there for when the next chocolate bunny craving hits.

A mini candy option doesn’t mean its “mini” in calories, fat or sugar. The little foil-wrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter eggs have more sugar, fat and saturated fat in a 5-piece serving than the traditional (34 gram) peanut butter egg.

Keep your eye on the portion size! You would be surprised what is considered a serving on some of the Easter candy labels. So check this out and know what you are really getting into in terms of calories, fat and sugar. If the label tells you that a serving is 1/4 of the 5-ounce bunny and it already has a fairly shocking amount of fat grams per serving…it’s probably best not to enjoy more than 1/4 of the bunny!

It’s better to eat jelly beans than to drink soda! Our bodies appear to be more likely to compensate naturally for the calories in a handful of jelly beans compared to the same calories in a sweetened drink. A Purdue University study found that significant weight gain might occur when carbohydrates are consumed as liquids rather than as solid food because the participants didn’t decrease their intake to compensate for the added soda calories but were able to for the additional jellybean calories.

Sources:
NCA National Confectioners Association
International Journal of Obesity. June 2000, Vol. 24, Number 6, pages 794-800 “Liquid versus solid carbohydrate: effects on food intake and body weight” DiMeglio DP et al.