Everyone knows the old joke about how Valentine’s Day was invented by greeting card companies, but that’s obviously not true. It was actually invented by candy companies. Outside of Halloween, no holiday is as closely associated with sugary treats as the most romantic day of the year—nothing says, “I love and treasure you” quite like, say, a five-pound box of mystery chocolates. But which confectionary is the most associated with love in your part of the country? This interactive map will tell you which sweet you should be buying your sweet when Cupid comes calling.
CandyStore.com crunched the sales numbers from the last 11 years to determine which treats each home state most likes to crunch when love is in the air. They put together a candy map of the U.S. (which we first came across at Mental Floss) that also shows you the second and third most preferred options.
Don’t expect to see a bunch of weird foodstuffs as any state’s top choice, though. The winners are traditional Valentine’s Day staples, like boxes of chocolate, chocolate hearts and roses, M&Ms, Hershey’s Kisses, and—for some inexplicable reason—the number one choice, conversation hearts.
Is this the real reason conversation hearts won’t be sold this year? Supply can’t meet insane demand? Even if this is true, it’s still insane to us how much people anywhere love them. Unless the conversation heart people are behind Valentine’s Day. Think about it. We eat chocolate year ’round. We don’t need some made-up holiday to convince us to do that. But we only eat those little hearts with words on them in the middle of February.
And to throw us off the scent they got us to blame the greeting card people for the whole day. That’s a pretty sweet scam.
Featured Image: Paramount Pictures
