"black licorice" news and stories

Halloween is a time for candy. No matter what you do the rest of the year, how healthy you eat and what diet you follow, Halloween is the day you eat peanut butter cups, jawbreakers, and candy corn. But kids often get treats in their bag that just make them scratch their heads. Here are the ones I remember from my childhood.

1. Apples and bananas. Seriously, I don't want fruit in my bag. What is this, Halloween or a dental convention? Giving fruit to kids on Halloween just screams "I forgot to buy candy and I had this lying around."

Forbes magazine recently announced their top 10 healthiest candies. Chosen for taste and nutritional benefit, some of their picks are not really candies at all. An apple, which might be considered to be a treat by many people, is not and never will be candy.  A candy is a sweet, a confection and something that should not be confused with a piece of fruit, as the Pop'ems chosen by Forbes surely are; the combination of fruit and nuts, even if called a treat, should never be confused with candy. Taste-wise, a Larabar is a better option if you are going to count fruit as candy, because at least the spicy, complex, adult-tasting Cocoa Mole flavor has a good amount of cocoa powder in it.

Forbes is not off base on all of their choices, but candy still needs to be something at least a little special. Here are Slashfood’s 8 picks for healthiest (or least unhealthy) candies:

• Cocoa Via - Formulated to promote a healthy heart and even lower cholesterol, Cocoa Via chocolate bars are also fortified with nutrients like calcium, folic acid, B6, B12, C and E. The fruits and nuts in the bars make them a little something different, too.
• Adora – Sure, it has fifty percent of your daily recommended calcium, but that doesn’t mean that Adora tastes like it’s healthy. The smooth, rich chocolate comes in dark and milk flavors and will satisfy any sweet tooth in addition to strengthening bones.

I recently read a short news article about an Ohio couple that used black licorice candy to induce labor. According to a pharmacist quoted in the piece, there are certain chemicals in licorice that cause the uterus to contract. The couple claims it worked for them.

Browsing around a little more, I found studies on the effects of glycyrrhizin, the main component of licorice root (right) and the reason for its sweet taste. Several studies published in the American Journal of Epidemiology associated glycyrrhizin with earlier (preterm) delivery, sometimes by as much as two weeks. One of the studies investigated birth weight as well, and found that even 500 mg of glycyrrhizin per week had no adverse effects on birth weight or other birth outcome. The babies were no lighter, just more likely to be born earlier.