Would You Eat Halloween Candy If You Knew What Was In It?

You know what’s a total buzzkill? Hanging out on your couch, enjoying some Halloween candy, only to then read the ingredients list. What IS this stuff you are ingesting? (And how do you even pronounce most of it?!) Food additives have been controversial as of late, and that’s why Ingredients: A Visual Exploration of 75 Additives & 25 Food Products by Steve Ettlinger and Dwight Eschliman is so valuable: The fascinating new book lays out these mysterious food additives, explaining what they are and how they came to be.

Inspired by our reading, we took three common Halloween treats and stripped them down to find out exactly what’s in them. Click through to find out what additives are lurking in your candy corn, Warheads, and Butterfingers, what they actually do, and what else they are used for (hint: everything from explosives to open-wound healing).