We have yet to meet a person who hasn’t at some point been saved from the pangs of hunger, sugar cravings, or an energy drop by a candy bar. There are many popular candy bars ruling the snack market, and some of them are oddly similar to each other. For example, Snickers and Baby Ruth are both peanut-based, filled with nougat and caramel, and covered with chocolate. So what’s the actual difference between them? Baby Ruth is more peanut-focused and crunchy, while Snickers prioritizes a softer texture.
Baby Ruth bars contain chunkier peanuts, plus there are more of them than in the Snickers bar. This creates a chewier texture, which is great for those who love a scrumptious crunch. Snickers, on the other hand, is smoother — not just due to the fewer peanuts but also thanks to the heavy caramel content and the type of chocolate used. The varying texture is the main difference between the two bars, and it’s a great example of how important this element is in food. There are people who genuinely don’t like one of these bars but adore the other, even though the ingredients are largely the same. That said, most people do prefer the Snickers bar — it sells well over 20 million more units annually than Baby Ruth, making it one of the most popular snacks in America.
Snickers may be more popular, but Baby Ruth was created first
Snickers might be dominating the sales, but it actually hit the market almost a decade after Baby Ruth. In the early 1920s, chocolate bars with peanuts were becoming quite popular. Baby Ruth candy bars were released in 1923 and totally rode that popularity wave — though, to be fair, a dispute with the legendary baseball player Babe Ruth might have contributed to the publicity as well. Despite sharing a nearly identical name with the athlete, the candy bar was apparently named in honor of Ruth Cleveland, President Grover Cleveland’s daughter, who passed away from an illness when she was just 12 years old. Snickers was then introduced in 1930, with a lot less drama surrounding its name — it was simply named after a family racehorse.
The history, texture, and popularity of the two candy bars may all differ, but the nutritional composition of the two is incredibly similar. Snickers has 250 calories per bar, and Baby Ruth has 260. They both come with 12 grams of fat, 28 grams of sugar, and three to four grams of protein. The biggest nutritional difference seems to be in the mineral content: Snickers comes with 4% Daily Value of calcium and potassium but doesn’t contain any iron. Baby Ruth, on the other hand, contains 2% Daily Value of potassium, 2% iron, and no calcium — not that we eat candy bars for their nutritional content.
