Today for some reason, after a networking lunch, I found myself craving blue M & Ms.  Seeing that I am not famous enough to ask someone to pull out only the blue m&ms, I knew that solely blue would be a bit difficult.


This reminded me of a time when I worked for the hospitality division at the University of Arizona and I DID have to be the person who sorted out the M&Ms by color.  Okay, I digress (are you seeing a theme here?)  I guess that was one of those, character building experiences.


Today I would like to understand what the deal is with the candy coating and how do they decide about the colors and their percentages?  A rather long and detailed question of which no one will lose sleep over but hey here goes..


The candy coating of the M&M, per Wikipedia was developed for soldiers to carry chocolate without having it melt.  This led to their still famous slogan "melts in your mouth not in your hands". (although I have had some melting in my hands- have you?)  At one time, the candies were ONLY available to soldiers. 


Mars received a patent for their new way of adding candy coating to chocolate after seeing soldiers in the Spanish civil war struggle with the melting issue.


In the 90s the public was given the opportunity to vote on what color would replace the previously tan M&Ms.  Blue was the winning color, beating out pink and purple.


In 2008 and 2009 bags with solely green M&Ms were available for purchase around Valentine's day to follow the folklore that green M&Ms.. well.. made for a romantic evening.  (what happened to that folklore?  Did too many people find themselves disappointed?) 


And that my friend.. is all you need to know about m&ms on a Friday. 
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