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The List – Healthy Halloween Trick-Or-Treating
Written by Pulse StaffOctober 28, 2009 – 4:14 pm
1. The smaller, the better. Buy only “fun size” or better yet, “mini.”
2. Select candy that offers sugar-free options.
3. Buy value packs of sugarless gum.
4. Buy the handy portion-control craze and hand out 100-calorie packs of snacks (look for fun Halloween designs).
5. Pretzels are always a favorite, especially when small bags are designed for Halloween.
6. Stock up on 100 percent fruit chews or fruit “leathers”. Dried pineapple rings (unsweetened) are super sweet and chewy—very satisfying.
7. Avoid the candy corn—it stays in molars and causes dental havoc.
8. Learn to like dark chocolate. It’s healthy and has less sugar.
Halloween is one of the favorite holidays for all children. The reason is simple: free candy!
But, as a responsible parent trying to help keep your kids from joining in the growing youth obesity epidemic, there are ways to keep trick-or-treating healthier. Sure, your kids may not like getting sugar-free treats or other things from the above list, but candy is still candy.
Chances are they aren’t going to throw them away just because they aren’t the super-sweet sugar-filled candies we had back in our childhood.
The other thing you can do (and really should do) is to go through the haul your little costumed kid collected on his or her rounds of the neighborhood or mall. Not just to check for safety reasons, but to clear out the really bad stuff. One excellent parenting tip is to have a stash of “good” candy on hand to trade out for the treats you take from the bag.
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5 Comments »
STFU & GTFO
Sugar free options for candy? Are you out of your collective mind?
Sugar free candy is sweetened by aspartame. Google “aspartame” and “side-effects”, or better yet pick up a biology encyclopedia.
If I had gotten sugarless gum in my little plastic jack o lantern as a kid, I would have made a mental note to egg the hell out of the house later. The candy isn’t just for the child’s benefit, its to appease the little hellions from damaging your property. Just because candy companies have commercialized it doesn’t mean your trees are safe from being toilet papered folks.
This is a stupid article. First of all, there is no real evidence that a little candy on a holiday contributes to obesity. Secondly, candy corn may stick to molars, but that is also unrelated to obesity. It causes tooth decay only if one does not brush one’s teeth afterward. Finally, the mention of checking candy for safety reasons demonstrates the lack of research for this article. There have been exactly ZERO deaths caused by Haloween candy, and only a very small number of slight injury. Toothpicks cause far more injuries than candy each year, yet no one suggests checking your club sandwich for dangerous debris. Learn the facts and get over it already!
This is the cancer that is killing Halloween. It’s bad enough, with the quality drop that I’ve noticed, but you’re looking to make it worse? I can’t tell if you get off to watching children cry themselves to sleep, or if you just love the smell of an egging in the morning.