11/84Dollars spent by Americans annually for packaged cookies: $2,400,000,000
Dollars spent by Americans annually for pornography: $7,000,000,000
The average New Englander: 23
11/88Tons of jelly beans the White House has purchased from the Goelitz Candy Company since 1981: 12
7/88Percentage of all ice cream consumed by Muscovites that is vanilla: 95
In 3 ounces of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream: 7.5
10/89Estimated total value of the candy distributed last Halloween: $1,000,000,000
3/89Average number of calories burned during an “extremely passionate” one-minute kiss: 26
Number of calories in a Hershey’s Kiss: 25
10/90Estimated number of M&M’s sold each day in the United States: 200,000,000
12/91Estimated number of cookies that will be left out for Santa Claus this Christmas Eve: 84,000,000
2/91Percentage of preschool children who say that if they were president they would eat ice cream for every meal: 21
4/91Number of bees that invaded a Bayport, New York, house while the owners were on vacation last spring: 20,000
6/91Amount of chewing gum collected each year by the maintenance crew at the Statue of Liberty, in pounds: 600
10/92Number of calories in a chocolate chip cookie baked according to Hillary Clinton’s recipe: 68
Number of calories in a chocolate chip cookie baked according to Barbara Bush’s recipe: 75
10/92Amount of candy corn produced in the United States each year, expressed in ears: 2,250,000
12/92Price of a box of pina colada-flavored candy canes from the Spangler Candy Company of Bryan, Ohio: $1.89
12/93Rank of Snickers, among the most popular candy bars in Russia: 1
5/93Total amount spent on candy last Mother’s Day, per American mother: $4.70
1/94Hours the average Chinese worker must work to earn the price of an ice-cream cone at Beijing’s new Baskin-Robbins: 7
6/94Age, in years, of a piece of wedding fruitcake on display at the Grover Cleveland Birthplace, in Caldwell, New Jersey: 106
1/95First prize awarded the creator of Savory Spam Cheesecake at the L.A. County Fair’s Spam Recipe Contest last year: $100
5/95Boxes of cookies the Washington, D.C., Girl Scouts must sell each year to cover their liability premiums: 87,000
5/95Damages paid by the Kellogg Company this year after an Ohio man claimed a flaming Pop-Tart ignited his kitchen: $2,400
7/95Gallons of onion ice cream sold last summer at Vidalia restaurant in Washington, D.C.: 10
7/95Number of people who applied for thirty-six tasting positions at an Oakland ice cream company last winter: 10,000
1/96Tons of sulfuric acid used each year in the manufacture of Jell-O: 2,035
2/96Years in jail a California man was sentenced to last year after his third burglary offense, the theft of four cookies: 26
7/96Gallons of chewing gum scraped up each year by the maintenance crew at the Statue of Liberty: 39
8/96Number of Ben & Jerry’s Peace Pops sold each week through Pentagon vending machines: 12
8/96Percentage by which the Pillsbury Bake-Off increased its grand prize last year: 1,900
12/97Rank of milk among professional Santas’ favorite drinks with cookies, according to the American Dairy Association: 1
2/97Cost of a 1-pound, anatomically correct, chocolate human heart replica, from the Anatomical Chart and Model Catalog: $16.95
2/97Number of candy hearts that the New England Confectionery Company made last year: 8,000,000,000
6/97Quarts of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream found in the freezer of the Heaven’s Gate compound last March 27: 7
6/97Rank of Salt Lake City in per capita Jell-O consumption: 1
7/97Maximum fine for bringing one stick of chewing gum into Singapore: $10,000
12/98Year in which Christmas celebrations, plum pudding, and mince pie were outlawed in England: 1647
10/99Number of confirmed deaths caused by doctored Halloween candy given to children by strangers: 0
Number of confirmed deaths caused by doctored Halloween candy given to children by their relatives: 1
11/00Days by which a Texan’s prison sentence for candy-bar theft this year exceeded his sentence for marijuana possession: 550
12/02Chances that a child fed ”booger”-flavored jelly beans at a trade show this fall said they tasted like the real thing: 4 in 5
3/02Annual amount that Unilever’s acquisition deal with Ben & Jerry’s requires it to donate to “social change” groups: $1,100,000
Amount of its donation last year that was given to the Ruckus Society, which trains activists in civil disobedience: $100,000
3/02Number of Swedish teenagers convicted of lese majesty in December for hitting the king with a cream cake: 4
Total number of Swedish officials hit by cream cakes last year: 3
3/03Percentage change since 1964 in the number of different marshmallow shapes to be found in Lucky Charms cereal: +100
6/03Estimated number of Ding Dongs manufactured per minute at St. Louis’s Interstate Brands factory: 1,000
8/03Number of candy-bar wrappers that Cadbury’s new anti-obesity campaign offers to exchange for a basketball: 90
Minimum hours of basketball required for an 85-pound child to burn off the calories from that many candy bars: 100
7/04Number of fried chocolate sandwiches served at a British hotel chain in April after their debut: 1,256
10/06Estimated number of minutes of cocoa picking required to make a treat-sized Hershey chocolate bar: 1
12/06Number of worldwide incidents last Christmas of “Santarchy,” which involves roving mobs of unruly Santas: 29
Number of fruitcakes that drunken Santas catapulted into the air at the event in Portland, Oregon: 6
4/06Estimated number of Marshmallow Peeps that will be consumed around Easter this month: 800,000,000
2/09Percentage by which chewing gum reduces anxiety during conditions of mild to moderate stress: 12