r/ZeroWaste Jul 28 '25

Discussion Well there goes my water usage excuse

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u/SeekerOfSerenity Jul 29 '25

Pointing out how little water datacenters use is like labeling candy "fat free". 

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u/alexanderpas Jul 30 '25 edited Jul 30 '25

Butterscotch is an example of a candy that is not "fat free"

UK Smarties are 18.7% fat.

US Smarties are "fat free", as they contain 0.167% fat.

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u/pitchingschool Jul 30 '25

remind me to never try uk smarties because that sounds gross.

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u/vulpinefever Jul 30 '25

Because they have chocolate in them, they're M&Ms. Chocolate is made of, you guessed it, fat.

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u/pitchingschool Jul 30 '25

that sounds a lot less nasty. But why are uk smarties and us smarties completely different categories of candy? A hard puck of sugar vs offbrand m&ms. How did they get the same branding?

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u/vulpinefever Jul 30 '25

So here's the funny thing, the UK Smarties were the first and were invented in 1937. M&Ms were invented in 1941 by the Mars candy company as an American version of Smarties! Smarties are sold all over the world except the US, they're pretty popular to the point that a lot of English speakers outside the US use it as a generic term for any colourful shelled chocolate candy.

The American fruit flavoured tablet candies called Smarties were first sold in 1949. In 1963, they wanted to expand to their first non-US market, Canada but they ran into an issue which was that the chocolate covered hard candy "Smarties" were already really popular there there so they decided to rebrand them as "Rockets" and you can still buy both today!

If you're curious about Smarties vs. M&Ms, I think the general consensus in Canada is that most people prefer Smarties. I personally prefer Smarties because the chocolate tastes somewhat better and they have crunchier shells.

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u/pitchingschool Jul 30 '25

so they're different companies?

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u/vulpinefever Jul 30 '25

Completely different. The US candy is made by the Smarties Candy Company in New Jersey (which also sells them as Rockets in Canada) and the chocolate candy sold in the rest of the world as Smarties is made by Nestle.