Yolo candy, who make the delicious Linda’s Lollies we reviewed last year, sent us another product to check out, their award winning “Kadunks”. The award it won? “Best New Novelty” by ECRM. Who is ECRM? I have no idea, and honestly, and I tried looking. As far as I can tell it’s an organization that gives awards to trending products in various industries. I have news for ECRM: there’s absolutely nothing novel, new, or trendy about the concept of dipping candy in candy. Fun Dip started it off, at least for me, and that was over 30 years ago. For whatever reason, the dry-on-dry Fun Dip recipe worked, and it’s stuck around. Kids today still love it.

But enough about the past-let’s look at Kadunks.

Kadunks consist of gummies and a dipping goo (there’s really no other term for it as it’s thick and sticky and sugary. That’s goo.) in a handy package. The gummies tend more towards the Swedish Fish consistency, and aren’t bad. They’re semi flavorful, which is probably smart, as the goo dip is SWEET and sour, and by far the dominant flavor. The dipped gummies don’t taste half bad. As for taste, this thing is ayeet.

And that’s kind of the end of the positives for this one. The negatives are twofold for me. Starting with the moinor annoyance, I just don’t believe in my heart that kids prefer gimmick candies to old faithful stand-bys. The process of peeling back the cover and dipping might be fun, but there’s so many drawbacks. It’s not portable at all. Once open, it aint going anywhere. Also, if one of these things drop on Dad’s nice chair? He won’t be so happy. Sharing? Sure, but….try to quell the cries of “he got more!” when we’re dealing with goo.

The far larger problem is Mom. The look on her face when she saw this packaging, and then especially after she read the ingredients…wasn’t good. And ya know what? Dad isn’t super stoked either. This didn’t used to be a huge issue for me, but that was because the candy world, at least the non-chocolate side of it, hadn’t evolved to where it is now.

Today, there’s several excellent candy companies making delicious treats using mostly or only natural ingredients . Generally speaking, I enjoy these more. I believe they tast better-generally speaking. Even the big boys have started using more natural colors and flavors, reducing the amount of ingredients. But something like Kadunks that’s still using Red 40 food coloring…it’s just not neccessary. I don’t really want my kid shoveling chemicals in his mouth-hell, we don’t even let him have Aspartame. He’s the poor kid on the block who’s not allowed to chew gum more or less, because it ALL has aspartame in it now.

So maybe when it comes down to it, this is more about Dad than Mom. Mom has no issue with candy-in moderation-in our house, which I’m grateful for. Cause there’s a shit ton of candy in our house. Increasingly though, candies from Europe, where artifical flavoring and coloring isn’t commonplace, are becoming easier to get. Hell, I can easily get Scandinavian candies which are all GMO free, artifical color/flavor free and absolutely stunningly delicious locally in San Francisco now, or by mail. There’s no need for gimmicky, artificial candies.

UNLESS…..they’re delicious. See: Airheads. Artificial as f*ck, but I give them a pass on account they’re AMAZING.

Kadunks though? Just not feelin’ it.

Kid tested, Dad denied.