Yesterday I ate too much candy. I spoiled my lunch by eating 3 cookies (two were white and pretzel-shaped, with black and orange sprinkes, the other was chocolate with the orange and black sprinkles, then I ate half of a circular white one, and threw the other half away, deciding it was not worth the calories). After lunch I savored a mini kit-kat and a mini-milky way. Right before I actually started working again I found a Reeses in a candy dish at a nurse station and shoved it in my pocket for use at a more convenient time. And by that I mean I was saving it as a life preserver for the inevitable crash from my sugar high. I devoured it 20 minutes later while doing paperwork. So if anyone wants to know why there’s a smudge of peanut butter in the Progress Notes section of the patient in room 166’s chart…. Did I mention that work really gets in the way of eating candy? About an hour later, I thought I was done with the candy. I sat down in a nurses’ lounge to write up a patient evaluation only to be faced with a plastic jack-o-lantern full of “fun-size” candy. I see “fun-size” and I think, “Oh that’s FUN! Like a water-slide! Like a bunch of people doing the macarena! Like a basket of puppies wagging their cute little tails!” Fun-size candies taunt me, saying “I’m cool, I’m fun! What could be bad about that!? Do you really think one fun-size anything is going to hurt you? Come on now don’t be such a fuddy-dud. It’s not rat poison, it’s CANDY for god’s sake! Live a little, let’s have some FUN.” I was defenseless. I debated fiercely between the Milky Way and the Snickers and went for the latter. I don’t know why I wasted time with that decision. The second I was done swallowing the Snickers, I was tearing open the wrapper of the Milky Way.

Candied out, I came to work today easily saying “no thanks” to almost all the leftover Halloween candy that came my way. After lunch I went for the healthy choice, the Pay Day. That has a lot of peanuts, so its high in protein and fiber. I read an article in Runners World about how good legumes are for you, so I know Pay Day is packed with energy. The 1st ingredient is peanuts.* As I munched on this nutrient-rich victual, I pondered, what could make this even better? One of my co-workers, as if reading my mind, remarked out loud “Pay Day would be really good if it were covered in chocolate.” Another of my co-workers responded, “I think there already is such thing, its a Baby Ruth.” I wasn’t sure about this. I thought Baby Ruth had caramel in the peanut-y inside, not nougat. I was under the assumption that Pay Day was a mixture of peanuts and nougat. This lead me and my colleagues to our query: What is nougat?
Do you know? Seriously, do you really think you know what nougat is?
Well, I found a definition of nougat on Wikipedia. No its not a peer-reviewed scholarly journal but its all I’ve got. I would like to share it with you:

Nougat is a term used to describe a variety of similar confectioneries made with sugar or honey, roasted nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachios or hazelnuts are common, but not peanuts) and sometimes chopped candied fruit. The consistency of nougat can range from chewy to hard depending on its composition (Wikipedia).

Now we know. And knowing is half the battle. Remember that, from GI Joe? Anyway, if knowing is half, what’s the other half?

Maybe its resisting the siren call of the nougat.

*The second and third are sugar and high fructose corn syrup