Although candy corn is considered a staple in Halloween candies, I firmly and objectively believe it does not deserve to be a Halloween candy, or exist as a candy itself.

Candy corn is rather flavorless; it has very little real flavor besides sugar, and the dreadful waxy and oily feeling it leaves in your mouth when you swallow it down just exacerbates the nastiness. And the ingredients back this up: candy corn consists of little more than just sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and wax. Candy corn having a terrible taste is a common sentiment among the poll respondents too, as one student responded to the poll with, “It’s so gross; I hate the texture and the taste and it should be banned,” and I wholeheartedly agree. Another student described candy corn as “It’s too sugary. Just…. bad candy, bad!”

Adding on to the ingredients, one of the primary ingredients, called confectioner’s glaze, has a dark side: it’s made from bugs. Yes, confectioner’s glaze, also known as shellac, is a secretion that insects called lac bugs make. They combine it with sap from the trees they feed on to create “cocoons” that serve as their homes. To harvest shellac, the cocoons are cut down from the trees and boiled, and then the shellac separates from the cocoons. As this happens, many lac bugs die in the process.

Objectively, anyone who actually enjoys this bland candy has an extremely poor taste in candy, and desperately needs to go out and try some other real candies.