I’ve always loved chewy, sour candies.

After every soccer practice, my dad would pick me up. I’d often find him sitting in the driver’s seat, his head back, taking a nap. He could nap anywhere, anytime. The sun would be setting, leaving a beautiful purple and orange swirl above the mountains and trees, my face beet-red, hanging out the window on the drive home. Absolute joy, with the breeze cooling me down, knowing what was coming next.

Right on cue, we’d stopped at Pat’s Liquor at the end of the street on the corner of the small street in our small town. A special treat after every practice: Snapple peach iced tea and sour blue raspberry straws or gummy bears. Always one or the other. I enjoyed every single minute of them. With him, on the way home. The candy was a short, vibrant luxury of flavor and texture I wasn’t often allowed. But, on soccer practice days during those summer evenings when dad picked me up, it was everything.

Nowadays, as a parent, things have changed. While I’m not so sure about Pat’s Liquor, those same candies still exist, along with so many other options, each with what seems to be an exponentially high number of ingredients. A lot of people make the assumption we never have candy in my house, which is not the case. My kids love candy, and I enjoy it every now and then, too. When I share those same candies with my kids, now I worry about their sugar intake, the high fructose corn syrup, whether they’ll remember to brush their teeth, and the artificial dyes they’re consuming. It all seems so much worse.

It’s so much easier to see the consequences of those choices when you’re not the kid just wanting a sweet treat after practice. I think it’s because life is so much more full of those options now. Back then, it was a weekly treat — if I was lucky. I didn’t have to constantly navigate artificial foods the way we do today.

Problem is: I want my kids to have those special memories — us stopping for a treat, that feeling of being celebrated, loved. But I also worry I overdo it. That it can become a confusing gift of love when it could also hurt. That I was so busy worrying about my own calories and macros and then giving them candy and fun treats to share those special moments, when it could have been leading them down a path of dependency on sugar.

So, I decided to look into the ingredients further. Here’s what I actually found when I started looking.

Artificial flavors and colors are going crazy, glyphosate (AKA Roundup) seems like it’s in everything, and more and more highly processed foods have made it onto the labels we see in stores today. About 15,000 new ingredients are introduced each year, keeping food scientists, food engineers, and marketing experts very busy. From what I can tell, manufacturers are finding increasingly sneaky ways to strip the nutrients out of our food to fill their pockets.

And I’m just not okay with this.

The ingredients in the foods we grew up with have changed. McDonald’s fries, Ritz crackers, Campbell’s Cream of Chicken, Hidden Valley Ranch all have longer, more complicated ingredient lists than they did in the 90s.

And so many food labels have these in abundance, as if they’re not in the least bit embarrassed by it.

The good news is we have something now we didn’t have then: better options. Brands like Simple Mills, Siete Foods, Amy’s Organic Soups, and Primal Kitchen believe fewer ingredients are more, and they taste good, too.

I want my kids to inherit a world where they can enjoy those things, certainly, but not rely on them. I want them to enjoy food and not fear it, but understand that what they eat can nourish them and give them energy or bring them down. That nutrients and ingredients are a choice, and one should be informed of what they’re consuming. None of it is wrong or bad. All of it is a possibility to be enjoyed as part of a cleanish, happy life.

Now, I look back at my dad and know he probably shouldn’t have been stopping at Pat’s Liquor after every practice. He wound up with Type 2 diabetes in his 40s because of his food choices, even. But how hard would it have been to drive past that liquor store and lose those moments?

I see now that I’ve created new moments with my kids. Mountain bike rides, smiling as we glide through the wind. Climbing hikes for the beautiful waterfall payoff at the end. Exploring new cities as we travel across North America. There are more ways to cherish memories than I ever had growing up. And those sweet treats can be just a small part of it.