Why?? Why?? (I despair sometimes......)

In my setting children bring a packed lunch, last week one child who is 22mths old was sent 'popping candy' as part of their lunch
but when I spoke to mum about it to remind her about my healthy food/sweets policy she looked at me blankly and said, oh is that was it is???

why would you give your child a 'foodstuff' (term used very loosely) if you didn't know what it was.......

Has anyone else ever had 'strange' foodstuff in place of real food??????