Good News, Peeps!

    The season is upon us. 
    For the past few weeks and for the next few weeks Peepsaholics worldwide have been and will continue to be confronted with this:

...just about everywhere we go.
    But then it occurred to me:  It's not just us Peepsaholics who have to struggle through the season,  going widely out of our way or staring strait ahead while humming loudly to avoid the ubiquitous Easter csndy displays that assault our line of vision in every store we dare to enter.
    This time of year has got to be even harder on that much larger segment of the population: the Chocaholics. 
    As it is for us Peepsaholics, for the Chocoholics Easter time has got to be a purgatory of avoidance or a saturnalia of indulgence accompanied by the post-calorie remorse.
    Except that  we Peeps folk generally have only one display per store to deal with, while the chocolate-cravers have to deal with this:

    Chocolate is everywhere.  Actually, it's everywhere all year long.  As a non-chocophile, I can't imagine how that must be.
    But for chocoholics, the news gets worse.
    A couple of days ago, after tearing into a package of Peeps that some "friend"  slipped me, fully aware of my addiction, I gobbled down five chicks in one fell swoop.  Well, maybe it was in two or three fell swoops.  But I eventually ate all five of them before hiding the rest.
    That's how it goes with me.  I can't eat one Peeps.  I have to eat them in multiples.  In fact, nobody ever eats one Peeps.  A person either eats none or several.
    Anyway, I was riding along on a Peeps-satiated sugar high until I crashed and was then filled with post-Peeps remorse, and feeling the need to face my moment of truth, I reluctantly reached for the Peeps box and did what I'd been avoiding doing my whole life:  I looked at the calorie count.
    And when I learned how many calories there are in 5 Peepchicks  - or 6 Peepbunnies, though for me Peepchicks are the gold standar - my heart did a flip-flop.  Not of horror, but of joy.
    It turns our that 5 chicks  - or 6 bunnies - contain a mere 140 calories!
    That's only 28 calories per chick! (or 23.5 per bunny!)

  It turns our that 5 chicks  - or 6 bunnies - contain a mere 140 calories!
    That's only 28 calories per chick! (or 23.5 per bunny!).

    Even 5 chicks - which is my upward limitation for one episode - isn't horrible, as dessert items go. 

I mean, there's that many calories in two Tagalong Girl Scout Cookies,














...And who can stop at two of those scrumptious  little Tagalongs?

    Who, except for those belonging to the tribe that is far more tempted by a marshmallow bird dipped in dyed sugar?
    And here's where the news gets worse for those mass legions of the Chocoholic tribe.
    The same number of calories  in a hefty serving of 5 Peepschicks likewise resides in:

1 1/2 Reese's peanut butter eggs,  That's 25 grams, or a little under 1 ounce of egg;

3/16 of a cup of M&M's.  That's a little over an ounce of M&M's;

one 1-ounce chocolate bunny.

    To which the results of this research my husband Tom replied, "But what's the point in knowing all that?  Almost anybody would much rather eat a little piece of chocolate than a whole boatload of Peeps!"
    Though deflated by his point, I had to concede, "Touche."
    In truth, I only know of one other person besides me who loves Peeps enough care about the calorie count.

That's my daughter Theresa, here with her non-Peeps-loving husband Phill and kitty Dory, who would probably thoroughly enjoy squashing a Peeps or two.

    We are a tribe of two.