I love Lent. Part of it’s the cruel enjoyment I get every Friday as I dig into a greasy hamburger, but the best part about Easter anticipation: Egg-shaped candy. Something about that ovate shape just gets me going.

Take the classic Cadbury crème-filled egg. Normally, crème-filled foods evoke the eclair scene from Van Wilder and I quickly gag. But I devour those choco-riffic ova like Rocky Balboa downs real raw eggs–minus the salmonella shits.

How the pastel colors relate to Jesus, I don’t know, but they’re as addictive as those Gelly Roll pens you had in 6th grade.

The tantalizing texture of the candy eggshell takes a malted milk ball to a whole new level. As you bite through shell, chocolate, and powdery malted center, you experience an insulin-jolting joy.

The egg shape is clearly a scientific advance in candy design. No example proves this better than peanut butter M&Ms. Now we all know these babies are the food of the gods. But NASA scientists realized that the embryonic form allows the Mars men to pack even more salty-sweet peanut butter into that lovely little package.

Best of all, I can pretend that the nutritional benefits of real eggs apply to the Hershey’s version. An all-candy diet may lay me up with gastrointestinal distress, but I figure when Easter comes I’ll emerge triumphantly from my food coma.