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I can’t imagine who I’d be if I hadn’t grown up on Haribo Gummy Bears and Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers. Gummies have always been my go-to drugstore or movie theater purchase, and I blissfully eat them by the handful without ever considering what went into making my favorite sour, sweet, neon-colored treats. But if you’ve gone to a grocery store recently, you’ve probably noticed that the sweets aisle is flooded with brands that claim to hold the key to healthy candy: lower sugar and fewer artificial ingredients and flavors.
Today’s boom puts the spotlight on flavors like lychee and calamansi; chic, colorful packaging; and brands from first-time entrepreneurs. These candies lean on alternative sweeteners like allulose (a sugar that naturally occurs in fruits like figs and raisins) and monk fruit (a zero-calorie sweetener that comes from swingle fruit native to southern China). The labels also tout the use of organic ingredients and sometimes grass-fed gelatin, which we never even thought to expect from candy manufacturers. Perhaps it’s not surprising that a lot of these candies come with a high price tag. A variety pack of ten 1.8-oz. bags from Better Sour costs $32.90, while six 1.8-oz. bags from Behave cost $21.99 on Amazon.
But did we really need low-calorie and low-sugar options to hit the candy aisle, and do any of these sweets stack up to the gummy candies we looked forward to most when trick-or-treating as younglings? We tested a wide array of these better-for-you candy brands to see which are worthy of grabbing when your next candy craving strikes. Below are the seven we loved most—no sugarcoating.
How we tested
We searched for the gummies that managed to achieve a taste and texture most similar to the candies of our youth (we’re talking the ones with all the sugar, chemicals, and oils in the world). We tried to avoid brands that use sugar alcohols, like erythritol and xylitol, which we find have a chemical aftertaste and can cause bloating, cramping, and gas for some people. Our goal was to find the best-tasting better-for-you candy, not the one with the lowest calories or the most health benefits.
Our favorites
Why We Love It: Hey Yum’s packaging alone draws us to this organic Danish candy brand. The Magic Forest pack, which is Hey Yum’s answer to the Haribo Starmix, has gummy elves, butterflies, and owls, and is decorated with a furry dark green blob-shaped creature with a tiny pink hat and large, round eyes. The apple-, blackcurrant-, elderberry-, and raspberry-flavored gummies all boast distinct colors and flavors that actually taste like fruit. The yellow creature on the front of the Sour Flower pack winks with one eye and puckers its mouth, most likely in response to the bag’s tart contents. The sour flowers have a great texture—they’re plush, not at all sticky, and boast a mild, natural fruit taste. Hey Yum uses honey, along with glucose syrup and sugar as a sweetener, so these don’t have the chemical aftertaste that’s common in candies sweetened with sugar alcohols.
Sweetener: Glucose syrup, sugar, honey
If we had to pick just one: Magic Forest
Why We Love It: Better Sour’s sun-shaped gummies stand out for their punchy, fruity flavors. The gummies are 100% plant-based, contain less than 3 g of sugar per bag, and are free of sugar alcohols as well as artificial flavors and colors. The brand’s Iranian American female founders both grew up in Hawaii, and Better Sour’s flavors play homage to both the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Their first variety pack included apricot, pomegranate, and plum gummies, while the second contained guava, calamansi, and ume. Better Sour’s gummies don’t all just taste the same—you can taste the fruitiness of guava, the floral flavor of apricot, and the tang of ume that makes your mouth pucker with each bite.
Sweeteners: Allulose, apple juice concentrate, pectin
If we had to pick just one: Guava, Calamansi, Ume Pack
Why We Love It: If you’re looking for a soft, chewy bite without any excess stickiness, you’ll love the texture of Blobs. The star-shaped candies come in three flavors—orange-peach, pineapple-passionfruit, and pomegranate-apple—all of which are vegan, have 2 g of sugar, and don’t contain any sugar alcohols. We particularly love the pineapple-passionfruit version for its mix of sweet and tart. Blobs are also pretty low in calories with only 50 in each 1.8 oz. serving.
Sweetener: Allulose, pectin, monk fruit extract
If we had to pick just one: Passionfruit-Pineapple
Why We Love It: Behave offers two shapes—stars and bears—in sweet or sour flavors. We are obsessed with the very sour sour packs, which make your mouth water and your facial muscles dance with delight. The gummies across the board win points on texture since they have a nice bounce and aren’t at all sticky. The flavors of the sour bears—in watermelon, mango, and lychee versions—are the clear winners. The brand has Top Chef alum Elizabeth Falkner on board as its Head of Candy, which might explain why these taste so good. The sour packs have 3 g of sugar, while the sweet boast only 1 g, and yet both are able to achieve a nice sweetness without any chemical aftertaste. Take note that Behave Bears have a ton of fiber (19–20 g per serving—the equivalent of the fiber content in five medium apples) so we kindly advise you to avoid eating the whole multipack in one sitting.
Sweeteners: Allulose, cane sugar, monk fruit
If we had to pick just one: Sour Stars
Why We Love It: NBA star Jayson Tatum created Small Wins as a candy alternative for his son. While we can’t vouch for whether Tatum eats candy courtside while playing small forward for the Boston Celtics, we can verify that the gummies have pleasant fruity flavors, aren’t too sweet, and don’t have a funky aftertaste. We preferred the sour mix since these gummies do tend to be on the stickier side, and the coating on the sour ones helps keep them separate. Both the mixed classic (which have 4 g of sugar) and sour mix (with 5 g of sugar) offer peach, strawberry, green apple, and watermelon-lime as the standard flavors.
Sweetener: Allulose, cane sugar, pectin, monk fruit extract
If we had to pick just one: Sour Mix Gummies
Why We Love It: These gumdrop-shaped gummies from Tidbits are for the snacker who prefers fruit snacks or chews over traditional gummy candies. The first thing we noted was their subtle sweetness and how much these taste like fruit juice. The tropical citrus pack, which has juice concentrate from mango, pineapple, and orange, is delightfully tangy. The texture was different for each flavor—the açai-grape was chewier (like a Welch’s Fruit Snack), while the strawberry was tougher (like a gumdrop). These fall somewhere in the middle with 4 g of sugar and 13 g of dietary fiber per bag
Sweetener: Allulose, cane sugar, pectin
If we had to pick just one: Tropical citrus
Why We Love It: Okay, so these aren’t actually trying to be a gummy bear or sour gummy worm, but these plush mochi candies from Issei are chewy and just sweet enough to fall into the general category. If mochi is your favorite shaved ice or fro-yo topping, you’ll love having a packaged version of the classic gluten-free snack. These tiny bites, which come in flavors like tangerine, mango, and strawberry, have a texture halfway between a gummy candy and a marshmallow. They have a subtle natural flavor and are just as tasty straight from the package as on top of your favorite sweet treat.
Sweetener: Invert syrup, sugar
If we had to pick just one: Strawberry