[CaptainOfCoit]

Hence my tiredness of that soundbite, because it's almost never actually true. But I guess it depends on if you see "60% of contents is sugar" as "pure sugar with food coloring" or not, at least for me it's a difference but I understand for others it's basically the same.

[dahart]

There is a difference between 60% sugar and 100% sugar. Why is the difference between pure sugar and Jolly Ranchers meaningful to you? Is there a different outcome or recommendation? It’d certainly help to explain what difference you see and how that difference impacts your choices, rather than state that once exists without elaborating.

So what is the difference, exactly? Depends on what’s in the other 40%, right? It would be a bigger difference if the other 40% was made of fats or proteins or fiber, but in the case of Jolly Ranchers and many other candies, the other 40% of calories is cornstarch, which isn’t sugar but is made of glucose chains and breaks down into sugar when digested. Cornstarch, like sugar, is 100% carbohydrate. https://www.soupersage.com/compare-nutrition/cornstarch-vs-w...

@saagarjha didn’t claim candies are pure sugar, they said it’s surprising how close they are to pure sugar. And 60% sugar + 40% flavorless cornstarch + flavoring and food coloring is close to pure sugar with food coloring. Close is a relative term, so when arguing about it, it’d be helpful to provide a baseline or examples or definitions. Jolly Ranchers are much closer to pure sugar than meat or broccoli is. Jolly Ranchers are much closer to pure sugar than even a banana, which is also 100% carbohydrate calories. I don’t know how to argue that Jolly Ranchers aren’t close to pure sugar. Maybe you can give an example?

BTW, the current product website says Jolly Ranchers are 72% sugar: https://www.hersheyland.com/products/jolly-rancher-original-...