Collection 100 ...Opinions&Facts.

Statistics:

1. Researchers looked at data on around 17,500 people and found that 69% of the participants who were violent at the age of 34 had eaten sweets and chocolate nearly every day during childhood, compared to 42% who were non-violent.
2. Over £3000 million is spent on chocolates, toffees, boiled sweets and bars every year.
3. During a sunny bank holiday weekend, four million sticks of rock are sold at over three hundred seaside resorts.
4. The country consumes 600 million Mars Bars every year.
5. The country consumes 200 million Cadbury's Creme Eggs every year.
6. Official figures published this week show confectionery prices have increased by 6.8 per cent over the past 12 months (2008)
7. Meanwhile, a 400g "family size" bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk has increased by 11.5 per cent to £2.43 at Tesco
8. bag of Maynards wine gums is now £1.17, an increase of 9p on a year ago
9. The price of cocoa, chocolate's key ingredient, has risen about 28 per cent in the past year  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2788956/Children-count-cost-as-sweets-prices-rise.html
10. Sugar price was at about 20 US cents (12.5p) per lb, up more than 40% on the 14 cents seen in May 2010.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing/article.html?in_article_id=512609&in_page_id=166 

1. Unsweetened or bitter chocolate contains nearly 100 percent cocoa mass.
2. good quality dark chocolate usually contains a minimum of 50 percent cocoa mass, but can go as high as 85 percent.
3. Because milk chocolate has more added sugar than dark, as well as dried milk solids, it has a lower percentage of cocoa mass, usually about 30 to 40 percent.

http://www.chocolate.com/articles/chocolate-by-the-numbers.html 

1. there are an estimated 500,000 naturally occurring chemicals in our diet. 
2. We also create 20 E numbers in our bodies - human fat, for instance, contains glycerol (its food additive form, E422, is derived from animal and vegetable fats; it's used to keep foods such as ready-made icing moist).
3. some of the finest foods on the planet (including caviar, wine and artisan hams) depend on E numbers. Even vitamins have E numbers. In fact E numbers are all around us; 99.995 per cent of every breath we take is a soup of Es, including nitrogen (E941) and oxygen (E948).
4. £173billion we spent last year on food, drink and catering

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1269087/How-E-numbers-actually-GOOD-you.html#ixzz1AUJadEY2 

1. The GI measures the rise in blood glucose levels. Foods are given a GI score out of 100 with glucose as the standard with a GI of 100. Foods that take longer to be absorbed are called 'low GI' (GI less than 55). Carbohydrates that offer a quick hit are called 'high GI' (GI greater than 70). 
2. Jelly Belly Jelly Bean 54 grams = 200 Calories
3. Gummy Bears 51 grams = 200 Calories
4. Werther's Originals Candy 50 grams = 200 Calories
5. M&M Candy 40 grams = 200 Calories

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-look-like.htm 

Facts: 

1. The origins of confectionery can be traced back to about 2000BC when the ancient Egyptians satisfied their cravings for something sweet by combining fruits and nuts with honey.
2. Liquorice juice, extracted from the root of the leguminous ‘Sweet Root’, is known to have been used for medicinal purposes at the same time. 
3. Over 3000 years ago the Aztecs in Mexico were known to use the cocoa bean to make a bitter drink. However, it took 1500 years before that drink could be sweetened with sugar.
4. Sugar was thought to have healing properties, a factor which undoubtedly helped the sale of the apothecaries medicines, but they also found a ready market for sugar confections in their own right – for those who could afford them.
5. The Spanish conqueror of Mexico, Cortez, brought cocoa and the chocolate drink back to Spain in 1502. The addition of sugar made this bitter drink more palatable, but it took almost another hundred years for the new drink to reach the rest of Europe. 
6. The first shop to sell drinking chocolate in London was opened in 1657.
7. John Cadbury opened a shop in 1824 in Birmingham selling tea, coffee and cocoa; his cocoa manufacturing business started a few years later. 
8. During the 1840’s both Fry’s and Cadbury’s were producing chocolate made specifically for eating, although the vast majority of  production was geared towards the manufacture of cocoa.
9. Fry’s Milk Chocolate was launched in 1902, and employed a most endearing image on it’s wrapper – the faces of five boys showing the transformation of expression when being consoled with Fry’s chocolate. This popular image had been used since 1886 to advertise Fry’s.
10. Sugar has so much energy (calories) in it, that some people even run their cars on it!
11. Children who eat sweets and chocolate every day are more likely to be violent as adults, according to UK researchers.
12. The first “sweets” were made by apothecaries who used sugar combined with herbs and spices to “cure” people.
13. In ancient times aniseed balls were used as a medieval cure for indigestion.
14. Egyptians, Arabs and the Chinese candied fruit and nuts in honey to satisfy their sweet cravings..
15. In Europe in the Middle Ages the high cost of sugar made sweets a delicacy available only to the rich.
16. Boiled sweets made from sugar beet were introduced to England and America in the 17th Century.
17. By the mid 1800s more than 380 sweet factories had been established in the USA.
18. In the early 19th century came industrialisation and sweets became available to all. Hooray!!!
19. Gobstoppers are made from over 1000 coats of sugar!
20. Wine gums contain no wine!
21. Liquorice allsorts were formed when a salesman mixed up all of his samples by mistake!
22. Pick & Mix at Woolworth’s in 1909 cost 1 penny!
23. Since the Middle Ages sugar has been mixed with medicines to 'sweeten the pill' and from the begining of the twentieth century there were many lozenges, gums and pastillies that served as throat soothers, stomach warmers or healthy energy givers.

Sweet and Confectionery Timeline 1866 Fry’s Chocolate Cream Bar 1902 Fry’s Milk Chocolate (5 Boys) 1905 Cadbury’s Dairy Milk 1910 Cadbury’s Bournville Plain Chocolate 1911 Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit and Spearmint Gum (UK Release) 1915 Cadbury’s Milk Tray 1921 Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut 1929 Fry’s Crunchie 1932 Terry’s All Gold 1932 Mars Bar 1933 Rowntree’s Black Magic 1935 Milky Way 1935 Rowntree’s Aero 1935 Kit Kat 1936 Quality Street 1936 Rowntree’s Dairy Box 1936 Maltesers 1937 Rolo’s 1937 Smarties 1939 – 1945 WWII 1948 Polo Mints 1948 Spangles 1951 Bounty 1958 Galaxy 1958 Picnic 1962 After Eight Mints 1967 Twix 1967 Marathon 1976 Yorkie 1977 Double Decker