Trick or treat?

Trick or treat?

Give me something

good to eat.

When that nursery rhyme was written, it continued on to include the following treat suggestions, “apples, peaches, tangerines, cookies, chocolate, jelly beans, lemons, grapefruits, limes so green, nuts and candy, lollipops.”

Not so bad, right? A lot of fruit, nuts and still room for candy and sweets. If only Halloween was still that easy.

The biggest issue is that grocery stores, big box stores and even pharmacies are brimming with colorful, sugary goodies and the marketing push for our kids to dive in is relentless. Then, even if you do have a child that is used to making better, less toxic choices, almost no one will be handing these out, leaving your own house as the lone warrior in the battle against high sugar, GMOs and chemicals found in almost all commercial treats.

So what to do?

Aside from denying your children from partaking in the fun of trick or treating, the best strategy is a sneak attack that reels in the depth of dangers.

Here are my top tips for enjoying all that is fun with Halloween, while still managing the dangers.

1. 1.Choose your own hand-out treats wisely because leftovers end up back in your children’s lunch boxes. Some good ideas are Surf Sweets, Justin’s Peanut Butter Cups, Stretch Island Fruit Leather, Buddy Fruits, Glee Gum or any assortment of organic candies.
   
   Of course, you can also try giving out fruit if you know the trick or treaters and they trust the safety of what you give. Unfortunately, in today’s world, nuts are now taboo, as are homemade cookies.
   
   

2. 2.Include toys and fun items in your Halloween giveaways: tattoos, fun erasers, glo-sticks. The idea of the holiday is fun, not sugar overload, so it might be nice to be known as the house that gave away awesome toys.
   
   

3. 3.Have a plan for sorting the loot that comes home, pacing consumption and removing the most offensive items. When my kids were young, half of the fun from the night was our sorting game of going through all the treats when they came home.
   
   

4. 4.Trade with your kids. Exchange garbage candy that comes into the house with snacks and treats that you are willing to replace them with or some of the toys and fun items you bought.Trading and negotiating was viewed as part of our fun and practicing good life skills to practice (psst, sometimes, money was also involved especially when we parents were extra motivated to thin the bags!).
   

5. 5.Have an at-home party! The absolute easiest way to team up and control the sugar damage is to have an at home event where real food can be served, fun treats can be created and exposure to bags of candy can be minimized.
   
   

The whole idea of Halloween is to have fun but to not throw away the next few weeks while the family waits for the sugar explosion and addiction to wane. As parents creativity is the key.

Let me know what ideas you have for treats, toys or ways to make this special day more manageable.

See more of my articles for FitLife.tv here.

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