Now that is something amazing, 17 kg/person a year. I’ve heard that Swedes eat most candy in the world. In Swedish there is something called smågodisätande (candy snacking might be a good translation?) and this sums the Swedish way of “candy-thinking” up quite well. Just a little bit (often turns into a whole lot more) often. All food stores usually have a whole wall lined with “pick-and-choose yourself” candy, bulk candy that is. The candy bags are huge, the little candy shovels are just getting bigger and bigger making it hard to just buy “a little”.

According to an article written in the Swedish newspaper DN (Dagens Nyheter = The daily News) a study comparing the recommendations done by WHO (World Health Organization) on the yearly sugar intake and the actual amount that Swedes do eat was done. The results showed that Swedes eat more than 50kg of sugar/year on average, three times what WHO recommends, and 25 % of that sugar is from candy.

It is not only children who eat candy (though in Sweden we have a word lördagsgodis which means saturday candy and is usually taught to mainly children, but nowadays not many people stick to that I don’t think). This is a considerable change to what people did about ten or even eight years ago. Yet again on average Swedes eat 3hg of Godis (candy) per week, what does the extreme consumer eat then?

Many Swedes associate holidays/special events with candy now, for example Easter (Påsk), Halloween, New Years Eve (Nyårsafton), Fredagsmys, Lördagsgodis and even at times like Christmas (Jul) and Midsummer (Midsommar). Candy is for many a great way to relax and give yourself a treat after a hard day of work, the problem is that people eat it all to frequently and in to big amounts.