Sweet Treats

Remember when Wagon Wheels were the size of dinner plates? Remember when a Curly Wurly used to be three feet long? Remember when Skittles tasted like freshly-squeezed fruit juice that was dripped into your mouth via a pipette?

Ok, there was perhaps a shade of exaggeration there, but my point is this: sweets used to be much better.

When I was a kid (cue Hovis music), I was allowed chocolate only a few times a week if I was lucky. Does it just seem worse because it’s now more accessible and we eat it all the time, thus deadening our tastebuds, or is it actually worse because lazy manufacturers found ways to cut corners?

Milkybars used to taste of pure condensed milk, but all of a sudden they’re just like all other white chocolate – still better than those awful white mice though.

Dairy Milk used to have a glass and a half of milk in every half pound, if the advert was to be believed, but now it’s not even among the best of milk chocolate.

Terry’s Chocolate Oranges are now made in Poland and I guess there isn’t even a man called Terry involved in the production. It used to take brute strength to smash one open and now you barely have to touch one before opening to achieve the “tap and unwrap” effect. And they were more orangey before.

Clearly we’re being duped. And taste isn’t the only thing manufacturers are robbing us of.

I remember the trick with Polos. Suddenly there was one less mint in a roll and then only a few months later the price would go up by a penny. The next step would have been to shrink the size of each mint, but if they’d continued for too long with the whole process, it would now cost £85 for a single, microscopic minty ring.

The increasing trend of “bite-size treats” in bags is most definitely a con too. 18 small pieces of Crunchie that are the equivalent to the size of one bar on sale for the price of two bars? Marketing genius.

Labelling chocolate as “continental” is nonsense as well. To which continent are the makers referring? Oh, the continent of Europe, is it? The same continent we’re a part of? Seemingly “continental” is no more than a euphemism for “expensive”.

Chocolate from other European nations is generally better. Norwegian, Dutch, German, French and Belgian chocolate are all far superior to our own.

Denmark deserve a punch for their tasteless, rubbery Haribo, mind you. The stuff in this country might well be made in Pontefract (does this mean Pontefract cakes are now made in Copenhagen?), but it’s the most awful of all sweets.

I might just start eating raw vegetables and hummus as a snack from now on. Right after I finish this 3kg sack of Maltesers.