What does Halloween mean to you? I remember making handmade costumes and decorations, meeting with friends, and having parties. I even remember it involving a little shaving cream from time to time! What I don’t really remember is the candy. Sure it was there, but it just wasn’t the main focus.
For my kids the costumes and decorations seem to be an afterthought, a quick problem to be solved all too quickly with a trip to the costume store. With this minor detail taken care of, focus can be set upon the thing if real interest, the candy!!! And wouldn’t you know it, for the convenience of us busy parents, the giant bags of candy are sold right there in the same store alongside the costumes. This is the ultimate in consumer efficiency, one-stop Halloween shopping. Where did we go wrong?
Now, I’m not judging. This is exactly how my Halloweens have gone with my kids. But then I started to read the ingredients in that big bag of candy. I started to try to figure out which one has the least amount of processed artificial junk. Do you know what Blue 1 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Gum Acacia, inverted sugar cane are? I sure don’t. All I know is that if I don’t know what they are and can’t pronounce them, how can I possibly give them to my children or anyone else’s children for that matter.
So in my quest to provide healthier options for my family, Halloween has opened my eyes even more. I don’t want my children to feel left out, but I do want them to stay away from those ingredients that are harmful for us. In my ideal world I would love to have a party where everyone could bring a home-made treats, make homemade costumes and decorations, bob for apples and bowl with pumpkins. Mark my words, next year I am planning way in advance and that is what I am going to do. I challenge you to come up with your own healthier version Halloween. 
In the mean time, this is what I’ve decided to do this year. I went on pinterest.com and found some great whole food plant based recipes: Clementine’s with cucumbers for mini pumpkins, Banana’s cut in half with dark chocolate chips for ghosts, and a skeleton made out of veggies. I also took a trip to whole foods and found the following items that seem less harmful. Now before I give them let me just say this, they aren’t all healthy but they are a better option than the rest.
Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks
Unreal Candy Bars
Yummy Earth Lollipops
Enjoy Life Chocolate Bars
Amrita Bars Chocolate Maca (I’ve heard that the evil geniuses over at Amrita, https://www.facebook.com/AmritaBars, are working on bars specifically for kids. Their plant based, nut free, gmo free bars will be a great addition to healthy Halloween options. But until the kid’s bars are ready, I will be forced to share my chocolate maca bars with them. I just cut them up into smaller pieces and the kids think they are eating brownies.)
When my children come back from trick or treating, with their giant bag of goodies we will go through them. The ones that have awful ingredients are going in the garbage! They will be swapped out with the healthier version to last a few days and that is that! I started educating my children about the ingredients weeks ago so they are prepared. There was some resistance from my kids at first, but now the excitement is building to get dressed up with their friends and to run around and to act silly in the dark. And that’s really the best part of Halloween anyway.
Happy Healthier Halloween from you Health and Wellness Junkie,
Aimee
