Remember, a few years back, when Cocoa plantations said that they could not keep up with the demand for chocolate. Could this be part of the problem?

I especially liked the dairy farmer who said cows need sugar. Ummm, didn't they survive for hundreds of thousands of years without it?

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Candy companies overproduce sugary treats and farmers feed the leftovers to livestock, claiming it’s a “sustainable” solution. Critics argue the practice benefits corporations financially while masking the systemic issues of excess production, cheap corn subsidies and an unhealthy food system.

By Jessica Scott-Reid

American consumers are expected to spend over $13 billion on chocolate and other types of candy for Halloween this year, but even at that rate, candy companies end up with a surplus.

The leftovers end up in some interesting places, including farms, where some farmers feed the candy to their animals. Chocolate and other treats that can’t be sold, or candy bits leftover from production, are sold to meat and dairy producers, who in turn add them to their animal feed.

The agriculture and candy industries frame the practice as “sustainable” — a way to curb waste that would otherwise go to landfills. Cargill, for example, deems it “upcycling” and a “win-win” for farm animals and the environment.

While feeding food waste to animals is preferable to tossing the waste to rot in landfills, both meat and candy companies benefit financially from the practice. Some food waste experts say consumers should be questioning why there is so much of this waste to begin with.

Where the practice originated, and whether it’s healthy

The practice of feeding candy to farm animals was initially motivated by rising corn prices during times of drought, a way for producers to reduce feed costs.

One former cattle nutritionist turned dairy farmer, Laura Daniels, argues on social media that sugar is needed to feed the bacteria in cows’ stomachs that break down the fiber they consume.

However, at least one farmer doesn’t see the benefit. Minnesota farmer Lauren Kiesz argues the candy is “empty” and “nutritionally void” calories that are being “foisted on cattle and their rumens,” “all in the name of the conventional food system’s four horsemen: bigger, fatter, faster, cheaper.”

Kiesz, who says she farms animals exclusively on pasture, notes, “a mouthful of grass and a mouthful of Mounds are extraordinarily different.”

And while some animal advocacy groups urge owners not to feed candy to their pet pigs, there are hog farmers who also add candy waste to their feed.

“Candy of all forms is unhealthy for pigs,” says the North American Pet Pig Association.

Yet, according to National Hog Farmer, “Waste chocolate can also be added up to 30 percent of finishing pig diets to support optimal growth performance without affecting carcass composition or pork quality.”

Feed is the greatest expense for most animal farmers, so cheap candy waste offers an economical solution.

“When producers find a way to blend in other, cheaper ingredients into the standard cow meal, they frequently will,” reported The Counter. “As long as the stuff doesn’t hurt milk and meat output, they’re going to make more money.

The practice of feeding candy to cows attracted more attention in 2017, when a truckload of red Skittles spilled onto a highway in Dodge County, Wisconsin. The story went viral, making news across the country.

Those particular candies were reportedly defective, lacking the signature “S” due to a power outage at the factory. Interestingly, while the truck was reportedly on its way to a nearby dairy farm, Mars (the owner of Skittles) later denied that it had sold the candy to be fed to cattle.

https://youtu.be/1ZycsuHG0Jg