This Wildly Popular Candy Contains Unsafe Levels of Arsenic, Study Says
It's an unfortunate fact of life that our favorite candies include trace amounts of ingredients that could potentially kill us. In 2023, Lindt and Sprüngli faced a class action lawsuit after Consumer Reports found lead and cadmium in their dark chocolate bars.
Now, Florida's Department of Health has released its findings after testing several popular candies for arsenic. Surprisingly, many of the candies contained potentially unsafe levels of the toxic heavy metal. It turned out that one very popular, classic staple candy had arsenic levels that were alarmingly high.
According to the findings, Twizzlers had 500 parts per billion of arsenic. This means a child can safely eat four pieces of the strawberry licorice per year, and an adult can eat a bit more than nine and a half pieces. Per year. Keep in mind, most people eat nine Twizzlers in one sitting.
The watermelon variety of Twizzlers contained slightly more arsenic — 510 parts per billion. But since the pieces are smaller, a child can safely consume 18 pieces in a year while an adult can safely consume 45. For whatever reason, the cherry variety (the best one) "only" contained 350 parts per billion of arsenic. A child can safely consume eight pieces of cherry Twizzlers per year, while an adult can consume 20.
Jolly Ranchers had the highest arsenic levels of all candies tested, with 540 parts per billion. A child can safely consume six per year, while an adult can consume 15. Due to the slow burn nature of Jolly Ranchers, though, it feels like slightly less of a risk. It's much harder to pound back a bag of Jolly Ranchers than a bag of Twizzlers. If you regularly pound back bags of Jolly Ranchers, you have a much higher chance of choking than getting poisoned by arsenic.
Arsenic occurs naturally and is "in all foods," Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said, per Florida Phoenix. Rice, for example, has notoriously high levels of arsenic. But Ladapo was "really shocked" to learn that the amounts in candies were even higher. "Compared to ... typical foods that people eat, the levels of arsenic [in candy] were 20, 30, 40, times higher," Ladapo said. "It’s just unbelievable.”