Post 1-History

Even though M&M's aren't very healthy, they are still one of the most popular snacks in america. The idea for M&Ms first started when Forrest Mars saw soldiers in the spanish american war munching on little morsels of chocolate covered in a hard and sugary shell. The reason they had this was to top the chocolate from melting in your hand our your pocket. During World War ll (1939-1945), M&M's were only sold to soldiers. A little while later they were sold to everyone. The reasonableness of the candies during the war caused a major boost in production and sales.

 M&M's has tons of different fillings. Some of them include Milk, Dark, and White Chocolate, Crispy Rice, Mint Chocolate, Peanuts, Almond, Orange Chocolate, Coconut, Pretzel, Wild Cherry, and Peanut Butter. In 1954, peanut M&M's were created, but they never got produced in the tan color. Yellow, Red, and Green got added to Peanut M&M's in 1960. In 1988, they started producing Almond M&M's again but then Mars started selling them only during Christmas and Easter time. It has been like this ever since. In 1990 Peanut Butter M&M's hit stores. Crispy M&M's came out in 1999 but they ceased to exist in 2005 even though that flavor made the most money for Mars. In 2009 , they started producing "Strawberried Peanut Butter " M&M's but only for a limited time. That same year they made Coconut flavored M&M's. In April 2010, Mars created Pretzel M&M's.

When M&M's were first introduced, they were produced in 5 different colors; Red, Yellow, Brown, Green, and Violet. A black M was printed on each M&M in 1950. It became a white M in 1954. Red M&M's stopped selling in 1976 because people worried about the die in them. The color was changed to orange. The Red ones came back later, but the orange ones still remained. In 1995, Mars let people vote on which new M&M's color they wanted. The choices were blue, pink, and purple. Blue won and replaced tan.

In 1980 Australia, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, The United Kingdom, and The United States all produced M&M's. M&M's are one of NASCAR's most popular sponsors. Kyle Busch currently drives their car. M&M's were first rocketed into space in1982 and been apart of all missions since. Their are five different M&M's spokescandies. There is Red for Milk Chocolate, Yellow for Peanut, Green for Peanut Butter, Mint, and Dark Chocolate, Blue for Almond, and Orange for Crispy Rice. In 1998 M&M's got crowned "The Official Candy of the New Millennium " because MM is the roman numeral for 2000.

Mars Inc is popular because they made M&M's, Skittle's, Starburst, Snicker's Bar, and The Mars Bar. They have also made Minstrels, Revels, and Treets, but these are not so popular. William Murrie, President of Hershey's Chocolate, got 20% of all the earnings of M&M's because he allowed them to be made with Hershey's Chocolate. One of the M's on M&M's stood for Forrest Mars and the other for William Murrie. Just imagine, if Forrest Mars hadn't spotted those soldiers with the little chocolates then we wouldn't have M&M's! What would are world be like without M&M's ?!

Post 2-Questions

1. How many different flavor M&M's are there ?
   26


2. How many different colors are there ?
    17


3. What's the most popular M&M flavor ?
   Crispy Rice


4. What's the least popular flavor ?
Dulce de Leche 


5. Has the Mars company (that made M&M's) made any other candy ?
Skittles, Snickers Bars and Mars Bars


6. Why did they stop selling Almond M&M's ?
They wanted to make them a limited addition holiday specil 


7. How much money has the Mars company made from M&M's ?




8. How many different M&Ms spokescandie's are there ?
5. Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Orange


9. What does M and M stand for ?
Forrest Mars and William Murrie the president of hersheys chocolate


10. Were the "M's " always on M&M's ?




11. Did they always sell M&M's in a bag ?
No at first they were sold in little tubes


12. How many different Continent's sell M&M's ?
7 (all of them)

Post 3-How To

M&M Fudge

First of all you'll need this stuff:

Ingredients:
3 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of cocoa powder (it can be unsweetend but you have to add a little more powdered sugar)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of butter, or margarine, cut up into 10 pieces
1/4 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of any flavored M&M's

Kitchen Supplies:
1 Eight inch glass baking pan
A microwave
A Refrigerator
A spoon or a whisk
A knife
Plastic wrap or an airtight container
Measuring cup
Large microwave- safe bolw

Step 1: Put the sugar, the cocoa powder and the salt into the large bowl. Stir until well mixed. Drop all of the butter pieces in and microwave on high for 1-2 minutes until butter is fully melted.

Step 2: Add the milk and stir until smooth.

Step 3: Microwave on high again for 1 minute. Stir in the vanilla and the M&M's.

Step 4: Butter the 8 inch baking pan. Pour in the mixture and put it in your refrigerator for one hour or more.

 Also make sure to cover the pan with the plastic wrap or after one hour store it in a airtight container so it doesn't dry out. You can get about 60 pieces of fudge if you cut the it into 1-inch pieces.

Post 4-Bibliography

"Mars, Inc - SWOT Analysis" M2PressWIRE 8 Sep. 2008 1-2

" M&M Candy" 20 Jan. 2011 <www.madehow.com/Volume-3/M-M-Candy.html>.

" M&M's History. " 17 Jan. 2011. <classes.bus.oregonstate.edu/fall-05/ba590/MM's.doc>.

"M&M's." Wikipedia. 15 Jan. 2011. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%26M's.

Rothschild, Sarah. "NASCAR Expects Big Sales in '08." The Miami Herald 16 Nov. 2007 1-3

Post 5-Summary

 I thought that M&Ms was an interesting and fun/easy thing to write about. The only hard thing to write was my summary and that wasn't even that bad. I was just confused what I was going to write about. All the post were pretty easy once you knew what to do. Like with the bibliography I didn't get what to do at first but after library and when my mom showed me how to do it it was simple and only took about five minutes. I also thought the history post was pretty easy after I used the method that we learned in social studies (take notes in your own words and put them together into a paragraph then type it). It was actually pretty fun except for the typing part !

One reason that I thought the blog was fun is because I liked looking at all my progress that I had made. It was really awesome to know that I had written a five paragraph history post because Ive never done that many before ! I also thought the blog was fun was because I liked learning all the cool facts about about M&Ms.  The reason I thought doing my blog was easy was because I got the hang of everything.  Like what I said in my assertion about the social studies way of writing the history post that since we had already done it before in class and the same thing with my bibliography. Really the I only had to take notes then     put them together into paragraphs and then type them. It seems like extra work but its not. Even if it is its a much more smooth process and its alot easier.

Overall, I thought that doing the blogs was interesting and fun. I know that all that Ive learned from this blog will help me do a lot of other things. Like now I know how to write a big essay but doing it in an easier way . I also now know how to write a bibliography which I had know idea about before I did my blog. I also thought that writing my blog was cool because now I know all these cool facts about M&M's and their history. Like for example did you know there are 26 different flavors of M&Ms ?! The only ones I knew about before doing this blog were Milk Chocolate and Peanut!