Earlier this afternoon I stumbled upon Economy Candy, a candy store in New York City’s Lower East Side.

Although relatively small in size, the store offers an array of sweets, from ’70s classics to chocolate halva to Coldstone Creamery jelly candies.

In one corner, a colorful display of medium-sized “whirly pops” caught my eye.

They were your standard rainbow swirl lollipops (that swirl can be quite hypnotic, by the way!).

I grabbed one, turned it around, and could not believe the nutrition label.

The serving size for this single-serve three-ounce lollipop?  One-third of a piece!

Ridiculous!  It is times like these when the Food & Drug Administration’s serving reference amounts do the public no favors (per FDA labeling rules, one serving of candy is equal to one ounce, regardless of how the item is meant to be consumed.)

In 1994, the FDA no longer allowed manufacturers to determine serving sizes.  While uniformity among different brands and products was a smart move, the FDA claims their serving reference amounts “reflect the amounts people actually eat” (and drink).

I beg to differ, especially when it concerns items clearly sold — and meant to be consumed — as single-serve items (like three-ounce lollipops or 20-ounce bottles of soda).

3 Comments candy, lollipops, servings

I know lollipops are pure sugar, but how many calories are in the average lollipop?

I guess [I'm mostly asking about] Blowpops and Tootsie Pops.

– Angela Wilphit
(Location withheld)

Although lollipops only contain carbohydrates (they are free of fats and protein), they are not 100% sugar.

Blow Pops, for instance, contain 13 grams of sugar, but 17 grams of carbohydrate (the remaining four grams come from cornstarch.)

Let’s answer your actual question, though.

Each gram of carbohydrate contains four calories, so some simple math (17 x 4) tells us that these lollipops provide 68 calories.

Not bad at all, considering that in the time it takes most people to finish a lollipop, they could have very well eaten 300 calories’ worth of Skittles.

Here is where it gets interesting.

Since the Food & Drug Administration allows food companies to round calorie values, the Blow Pop nutrition facts label displays sixty calories per lollipop.

Mind you, the rules specifically mandate that food items with calorie values of fifty or higher express that number “to the nearest 10 calorie increment.”

So, in reality, that nutrition label should be listing SEVENTY calories per lollipop!

2 Comments FDA, You Ask/I Answer, calories, dextrose, food label, lollipops