All the Halloween candy you should — and shouldn't — buy

Every year, certain sweets are gobbled up while others linger in your office's communal plastic pumpkin.

What Halloween candy should you buy? Now, you have science — or at least the hive mind — on your side.

We asked KPCC listeners to rate more than 50 items in our Ultimate Halloween Candy Ranker. More than 350 people took the quiz — and we learned that you have some strong opinions.

Like Gordon Ramsay, many of you despise candy corn. As the acerbic British chef once said, "It's not candy. It's not corn. It's earwax formed in the shape of a rotten tooth."

TAKEAWAYS

• Chocolate always wins. Especially when it's combined with peanut butter, caramel, nuts or some sort of wafer. Because obviously. "I pretty much hate anything that isn't chocolate. And you left off Good N Plenty, which are the WORST," commented one participant.
• Coconut is controversial. Many people rated Mounds and Almond Joy as either a 5 or a 1 — a spread we rarely saw with other candies. "I apparently have really extreme views about candies," one respondent wrote.
• Candy corn is polarizing. Several people rated it 1 (or "awful") but a die-hard contingent loves the stuff.
• Not all jelly beans are created equal. Jelly Belly scored reasonably well with a 2.93 approval rating but generic jelly beans were among the least popular candy, scoring only 1.89.
• There's life beyond chocolate. The highest scoring non-chocolate candies were Haribo gold gummy bears and Starburst, which didn't crack the Top 10 but tied for 15th and 16th place.
• Some people love the underdogs. Even low-scoring candies have their fans: "Laffy Taffy is the BEST!"
• There are some things we'll never understand. Before humans knew how to make candy that actually tastes good, there were Jujubes, Dots, Tootsie Rolls and Necco Wafers. Why they still exist is a mystery. Almost no one like them. As one person wrote, "Can't believe NECCO wafers considered actual food." Neither can we.
• Be a candy hero. If you're the person who gives out full-size candy bars, people adore you: "People who give pennies or nickels might as well give out chocolate-dipped Brussels sprouts. And a special shout out to Mrs. Bernard of Huntington Beach, who gives out full-size candy bars."
• Don't be a candy zero. Are you handing out raisins, apples, pencils or miniature bags of salad? Your neighbors hate you.

METHODOLOGY

For every candy, we multiplied each rating (5, for example) by the total number of people who gave it that rating (205, for example) and added up all those ratings to achieve a total score. Then we divided that total score by the total number of people who rated that candy to determine each candy's approval rating. Not every respondent rated every candy, perhaps because they hadn't tasted the candy or due to quiz-taking fatigue.

Here's how it worked with Butterfinger.

Rating: 5 x 71 people = 355

Rating: 4 x 88 people = 352

Rating: 3 x 84 people = 252

Rating: 2 x 74 people = 148

Rating: 1 x 41 people = 41

1148 (combined score) / 352 (total respondents) = 3.26 (total score)

RESULTS

Let the debating begin!