When Chris Stewart stumbled upon a curious package of gum in a small store, he had no idea the effect his speculations about the candy would have on his life.
 

“I went to this crazy little store and I saw this package of gum called Sand Hill Bubble Gum and it just basically looked like bits of sand with little candy ants in it,” Stewart says.
 

The unusual product inspired the computer nut to write a review about the candy on the Internet, and he continued to post more reviews as his sweet tooth crunched through more candies.
 

It was not long before Stewart’s Candy Critic website was featured as Yahoo’s Cool Site of the Month and, from there, things took off.
 

Over his nine years of running the Candy Critic website, the Carleton student was sent to the National Candy Expo in Chicago where he received over 45 kg of free candy samples and went to New York City for an interview with The Food Network.
 

“[The Food Network] took me to a candy store and basically said ‘you can do whatever you want in the candy store, we’ll pay for anything you do, any damage, any food you eat – go nuts!’ so I did.”
 

Candy Critic, run almost entirely by Stewart, boasts hundreds of reviews of various candies as well as articles on “candy-related issues.”
 

Stewart rates candies on three criteria: taste, texture and novelty. The top-rated candy is a Kit Kat, which achieved a perfect score in all three categories.
 

Other candies are not as lucky. Stewart’s least favourite, the Mocha Nestlé Crunch, acquired a negative score for taste.
 

“It kind of tastes like what might happen if you licked an ashtray. It was disgusting . . . it was not fun at all,” he says.
 

Despite the occasional repulsive candies, Stewart says he loves the adventure of trying new things and enjoys tasting unusual sweets.
 

“I had a couple of hot-pepper-type candies from Mexico that were disgusting, but wonderful, because they were just different and creative,” he says. “I also had a lollipop from Mexico that burned the roof of my mouth for two weeks – it was so sour it was ridiculous.”
 

Much of the candy Stewart acquires is sent to him by candy and chocolate companies.
 

“It’s free advertising for them and free junk food for me,” Stewart says. He has found that the volume of samples has increased over the past few years as more companies look to the web for marketing.
 

With all the free samples he receives, it’s a wonder Stewart has been able to maintain his slim figure.
 

“If I ate [all the samples] I’d be like 900 lbs,” he says with a laugh. Instead, Stewart usually eats a serving size, although he sometimes makes exceptions, and gives the rest to friends and coworkers.
 

“I have lots of friends who don’t like me because they gain weight around me,” he says. “At the studio I used to work for in Toronto, my boss came up to me and told me I was responsible for about 100 lbs [of weight gain] in the studio.”
 

When not working or attending school, Stewart enjoys travelling, a hobby influenced by his passion for food.
 

“I love the idea of food culture. I really love to see what people consider normal food,” Stewart says. “I want to break out of the mold . . . there is a lot of food that people don’t know exists.”
 

Even the most bizarre dishes don’t faze Stewart.
 

“When I was in Germany I was determined to try the ultimate German dinner and it was the grossest looking bratwurst thing that would scare most people off. It was awesome.”
 

Stewart’s adventures with food are not the only things he posts online. He sells photographs through his website “Beware the Cheese” and posts “millions of silly little things” on blogs.
 

“I collect photographs from bathrooms I’ve been in. I’ve put them on a Google Map so you can search and see all the bathrooms I’ve been in . . . I’ve almost been caught a few times in bathrooms taking pictures, and that’s not really something you want to get caught doing.”
 

In addition, Stewart is currently trying to say the word “cheese” in as many languages as possible (he recently mastered Russian) and he enjoys sending questions to prominent individuals.
 

“I wrote a letter to Brad Pitt asking him if he drinks milk,” Stewart says. “I wrote a letter to the head of NASA and asked him if we’d ever made contact with extraterrestrials . . . I recently wrote one to Galen Weston, who’s the CEO of Loblaws, and asked him if he’s ever sampled a grape – you know, just stolen a grape out of a grocery store.”
 

Stewart is currently at Carleton studying mass communications and is taking a food sciences class that he finds “enlightening.”
 

“Candy Critic and a few other things were sort of the big inspirations to get me . . . into writing and eventually led me here,” he says.
 

He says is not quite sure where he wants to go in the future, but has considered going into a career related to reviewing food.
 

“In a dream world, The Food Network would pay me and fly me around the world to eat candy. That would be perfect.”