A Note on Ingredients

I mostly review gummies (gummy bears, gummy worms, gummy teeth, gummy butterflies, peach rings, knockoff Swedish Fish, sour straws, and all the rest) and orange sodas. As it happens, there is a great wealth of gummies around the world, so for in-depth food reviews, I pretty much confine myself to them. There are, in my experience, fewer choices for orange sodas, partly due to the fact that there are many flavors, shapes and textures of gummies, whereas orange soda is pretty much one flavor (even with blood orange, orange-tangerine, etc., you only have so many variations). Plus, while in the course of a short visit, I can only put away so many bags of gummies without starting to feel sick these days, I can pound a couple of bottles of soda and be ready for another in fairly short order. As a result, I have exhausted the drink choices on some trips and branched out into other sodas, orange-themed juice drinks, and even some drinks that are neither orange nor soda. What I have lost in fidelity I have, hopefully, made up for in more drink recommendations for my adoring fans.

One important distinction with respect to the gummies I eat and review is that their main active ingredient is sugar. An annoying development since recreational cannabis legalization started spreading throughout various US states has come in the form of (mostly older) people saying, when I mention how much I love to eat gummies, “Ahhhhhh…gummies. I get it.” They wink, they nudge, they perform mismatched pantomimes. Sometimes they even surprise me and confess, “I like gummies, too.” For the record, I’ve been teetotal for almost eight years (another impermanently accurate figure). This assumption was not on anyone’s minds a few short years ago when gummies were just gummies. I still remember fondly when visitors to my apartment who came across the enormous bags of candy in the cupboard would prejudge me as immature and not mildly dependent. (To be clear, I am in no way disparaging the economic and societal benefits, especially for marginalized communities, of legalization. I just think that maybe they could have left my personal favorite food alone for the sake of conversational clarity.)

All of the gummies (and sodas, for that matter) reviewed here are appropriate for all ages as long as you are okay with the following potential ingredients:

  • Sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup (posts may specify the source of sugar if it makes a difference, which it often does, especially if it’s fruit juice)
  • Artificial sweeteners (I will almost always comment negatively since these usually ruin the taste)
  • Gluten (not that common but could appear with some frequency)
  • Gelatin (I will endeavor to comment, for our Kosher and Halal friends, when a kind of gummy excludes this prevalent ingredient)
  • Caffeine (occasionally in the sodas, rarely in the gummies, and likely will be called out when present unless the drink is, say, coffee or tea)

You will also observe that, throughout my homestay during the Covid-19 pandemic, I started reviewing a few books. I couldn’t go anywhere! They were my window into other places. Books took the place of the travel, not the gummies and sodas. I am aware that books are neither.