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The Trick Behind Halloween Treats

Depending on where you are collecting candy on Halloween, the free items can be more trick than treat. One word: Raisins. Dehydrated grapes that look more at home in the bottom of a toilet rather than the bottom of a plastic pumpkin shouldn’t be considered a Halloween treat. Ditto for toothbrushes, individual pennies, polished rocks and the errant canned good. Rocks, canned soup and raisins. Really? Who does that to a child on Halloween? Geez, the kid went through the trouble of dressing-up, braving chilly temps and navigating around mountains of fallen leaves in the dark. Doesn’t that warrant at … Continue reading →

Last-Minute Halloween Reminders

Halloween is still a few days away, but trick-or-treating has already started in my neck of the woods. In Wisconsin, individual municipalities are given the power to determine their own trick-or-treat times. In recent years, many communities have designated the weekend prior to October 31st as the official period where kids can “legally” go door-to-door collecting free candy. Safety is the main motivator behind the move. Law makers believe it’s safer for children to trick-or-treat on a weekend when the traffic is lighter. In addition, having kids hit the streets in costume on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon increases the … Continue reading →

Exchanging Halloween Candy for Money

A dentist in ohio announced that he will pay children for their Halloween candy in cash, plus throw a toothbrush in for good measure. As an extra incentive, the dentist, Craig Callen of Mansfield Ohio, will also enter the kids in a drawing to win one of two bikes. The going rate for Halloween candy? Cullen is paying $1 a pound for up to five pounds of candy per kid. Naturally, you can guess the motivation behind all of this. As a dentist, Callen wants to promote healthy teeth, implying that the excess sweet stuff is better off left out … Continue reading →

No Carrot Halloween for My Kid

I’m all for healthy lifestyles, exercise, eating right, eliminating childhood obesity, yada, yada, yada, but when it comes to consuming candy on Halloween, I don’t mess with tradition. Moderation. Everything in moderation. I wonder if the folks at Bolthouse Farms understand this concept and its relation to Halloween candy. I’m thinking not, considering the intense nature of its massive ad campaign and cult-like obsession with replacing traditional Halloween candy with its new SCARROTS treats. For those of you who don’t watch TV, read newspapers, flip through magazines, surf the web, listen to the radio or look up at billboards while … Continue reading →

Are You a Halloween Candy Nazi?

Halloween is the one day of the year that I allow my daughter to go hog wild when it comes to candy consumption. After watching her schlep ten blocks to gather 100 pounds of treats she ought to be able to choose whatever piece of sugary goodness she desires, regardless of whether I think her choice is disgustingly gross. Cough, cough… Laffy Taffy… ahem, cough… Circus Peanuts… ahem, cough, cough… Wax Bottle candy. I examine her trick-or-treat loot for broken packaging and stray needles, but I certainly don’t waste time reading the nutrition labels on each piece of candy before … Continue reading →

Sweet Treats to Serve Up on Halloween Morning

What better way to satisfy your family’s sweet tooth on Halloween morning than with seasonal recipes that feature two of the holiday’s most popular ingredients: pumpkin and chocolate. Your children will love starting off the day with a special Halloween breakfast, and considering they will likely be too excited to eat much dinner prior to trick-or-treating, these dishes might contain some of the only nutrients they’ll get until November 1st. These Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Pancakes and Pumpkin Waffles are simple ways to get your family into the Halloween spirit without leaving behind a frightening mess in your kitchen. CHOCOLATE CHIP … Continue reading →

Bloody Bites for Your Halloween Buffet

Oh, the wonders of ketchup. The tangy condiment can go a long way to creep out guests at a Halloween party (though, not to the point where mini ghosts and goblins won’t happily gobble up gory-looking goodies). The trick to these Halloween treats is to make them as tasty as they are gruesome to look at. You can start off with some Bloody Baked Potatoes (courtesy of the Food Network) and then serve up a slimy snake sandwich. Both make boo-tiful additions to your Halloween buffet. BLOODY BAKED POTATOES Ingredients: 4 baking potatoes 3 balls fresh mozzarella, diced 2 tablespoons … Continue reading →

Halloween Candy Competition Among Parents

There’s one in every neighborhood—-the home where you know you can score a king-size candy bar on Halloween as opposed to those tiny fun-size bars (which are really not all that “fun” unless you can cram 10 in your mouth at one time). King-size candy bars came courtesy of the Duerr family in my neighborhood. They had five kids, which explains a lot in terms of their generosity (with that many kids they were used to hosting half the neighborhood on a daily basis) and their choice of premium chocolate (one Halloween they handed out regular-size bars of Ghirardelli Chocolate … Continue reading →

Parents and Halloween: Scary Stuff!

What’s the Halloween game plan at your house? The holiday yields a litany of opportunities to exercise parental control beginning with the type of costume your child wears down to the type of candy you hand out to other people’s children. Then, there’s the decision between parents as to who stays behind to dole out candy and who shepards the mini ghouls and goblins around the neighborhood. And, perhaps, the toughest call to make as parent on Halloween: How much candy to allow your kids to eat on the big day before gathering up the sugary haul and locking it … Continue reading →

Avoiding the Sugar Crash

I’m over Halloween candy. If I had my way I would pitch every last fun-size Snickers bar and gummy worm in the trash. Of course, doing so would likely send my kid into cardiac arrest, but the health issues associated with eating the six pounds of loot she gathered during her four-hour trick-or-treat marathon can’t be much better, so I am seriously considering trashing her treat-filled pillow case. Regardless of gender, race or creed, most parents agree that too much Halloween candy is never a good thing. Okay, perhaps this issue does not cross gender lines, as I know way … Continue reading →