Easter jelly beans: Food Fight

There are so many types of jelly beans. You could literally make a March Madness-style bracket for all of them, and it would be a hot contest down to the last face-off. (Incidentally, the blog Jezebel recently published an NCAA-inspired cakes vs. pies bracket.) Here's how a mere four of them stack up, plain old Brach's (barf) not included:

Call us fundamentalists but Starburst jelly beans don't scream Easter. They do, however, taste wonderfully identical to real Starburst, save the addition of an obligatory jelly bean shell. The beans also come in two more flavors than original Starburst, adding grape and green apple to the traditional strawberry, cherry, lemon, and orange. Cost: $2.19 a bag, 30 cents cheaper than the others.

Wonka's Nerds beans, with their crunchy, warty, Nerds exterior and soft jelly interior, while screaming synthetic materials, reach near MSG heights in their addictiveness. You sort of can't tell what flavor any of them are, but it doesn't matter. Possible drawback: only five flavors. There totally used to be watermelon, blue raspberry. Cost: $2.49 a bag (on sale for $2.00 when I got them).