Are you interested in learning how to give healthy Halloween treats to children and still be appreciated? I have been doing this for years and the children still look happy with their treats.
My memory of Halloween is when we sang “Halloween Apples!” at the doors on Halloween night when I was a child. We never said “Trick or Treat” and doorbells were never rung. You just sang it louder until they answered.
This was a local custom in my home city of Edmonton and some other areas in Canada.
Back then our bags had lots of apples in them! Also, there were healthy things like mandarin oranges, popcorn, packages of nuts, and homemade treats too. I especially liked the homemade cookies, popcorn balls, and caramel apples.
Halloween Decorations: Decorate your house and enjoy with your kids with this collection of fun-to-make homemade Halloween crafts. Enjoy Halloween with your kids! Give your child’s imagination a boost by taking time to create Halloween Decorations!
Learn How to Give Healthy Halloween Treats
Why don‘t we give out apples or healthy Halloween food anymore?
- Most people do not feel it is safe or cool.
- Commercial interest in high-profit candy and candy confections.
Why we think healthy Halloween foods are not safe:
- This is because of urban legends about razor blades in apples and poison in homemade treats.
- Sociologist and criminologist Dr. Joel Best, at the University of Delaware, has researched every reported case of so-called “Halloween sadism” in the past 45 years and has found that not one of them is true.
Big companies make lots of money selling candy
- Americans buy more than 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween according to the National Confectioners Association. That adds up to $2.4 billion spent on candy for this event!
- One-quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.
- The second highest grossing commercial holiday is Halloween after Christmas.
Why I do not give out Candy
ONE-THIRD of all children and adolescents are overweight or obese and this issue is growing rapidly.
EVERY major health organization and government in the world is alarmed by this trend. Inactivity and overconsumption of junk foods, sugary foods and drinks are to blame. Related Reading: Childhood Obesity: Scary and Sad.
Let’s Give Children Real Treats Instead of the Usual Sugary Path to Diabetes and Obesity!
I am passionate about reducing sugar consumption in this world. Read my “7 Tips to Reduce Sugar Cravings“. I never give out anything with sugar in it at Halloween as I simply do not see it as a “treat” for children.
I invite you to join me to increase the wellness of children by not giving them candy filled with chemicals in the form of color and artificial flavoring and, of course, sugar.
Learn How to Give Healthy Halloween Treats
Here are a few great ideas to fill the baskets of trick-or-treaters:
- Small packages of raisins if you can find them
- Fruit juice boxes
- Small packages of potato chips (check the label to be sure it has only potato, oil, and salt). The salt will balance the sugar to some degree.
- Fruit leathers
- Packages of stickers; give one page out at a time
- Hairbands for the girls
- Halloween stickers, coloring books, puzzle books, pencils, erasers, Notepads
- Crayons
- Trading cards
- Colored pens for the older children
- Colored pencils and erasers
- Little notebooks
- Party favors like whistles and hats
- Key chains (of cartoon characters, etc.)
- Little rubber balls.
- Mini blowing bubbles. You can buy sets of 100 packaged for weddings.
- Small packages of raisins if you can find them.
Plastic toys (small cars and trucks, water toys like boats, ducks) were on my list, but…. In recent years there have been recalls of toys made in China due to lead. Health Canada has asked the industry to stop using cadmium in their children’s products. There are chemicals in plastics.
How Do Children React to These Healthy Halloween Treats?
- Often the girls want to put the hair bands and accessories on right away. Sometimes their costume won’t let them but they try!
- Most of the children are excited to choose what they would like.
- I hear them running to their parents yelling out what they just got.
The only ones who are disappointed are the older teenagers but I consider trick-or-treating to be for the younger ones anyway.
This Halloween party decoration items can decorate your ceiling, windows, fireplace mantels, cantilevered, doorways, arches, branches, balcony, you’ll be amazed at them to create atmosphere and landscape.
For those of you having a Halloween party for your children here are a few healthy sweet recipes
Delicious Gluten-Free Hermit Cookies 
– Yummy cookies filled with nuts and dried fruit. These delicious gluten-free hermit cookies are not overly sweet which is why we like them. The best thing is that they are full of very healthy ingredients and are vegan too. They do have a bit of a drier texture than the ones with wheat in them but don’t be concerned and are still yummy.
Apple Cake is Gluten-Free & Vegan & Healthy – This apple cake is wheat-free, vegan and without all that white sugar is my kind of cake. It is egg-free too which is important as eggs are not good for me. Also, it is delicious.
Date Squares – Wheat-free, filled with healthy oatmeal. These date squares are wheat-free and full of only healthy superfood ingredients. Most date squares are just way too sweet to be healthy. So when I developed this recipe; my own version is less sweet and tastes even better. You will find it hard to stop at only one.
Also…Learn how to make Healthy Gluten-Free Baking. It doesn’t have the sugars and starches most gluten-free baking does.
Healthy Baking Class Online – Gluten-Free, Vegan, Soy & Sugar-Free
- Learn to Bake Healthy Sweets
- Gluten-Free Healthy Baking that is Soy-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-Free, & Wheat-free
- Sinfully Delicious and Healthy Too!
- Wouldn’t it be great to eat cookies and tarts like you did as a child, innocently enjoying the sweetness and textures without worrying about the downside?
Get the skills and knowledge to create healthy baking with the Healthy Baking Course. Go here for the Healthy Baking Course to check it out.
Join my course The Healthy Chocolate Project. Yes, it’s true! It really is healthy! Not full of white sugar.
Read more about a healthy Halloween:
Healthy Halloween – Halloween for me as a child was unusually healthy – unusual in the sense that the rest of my life was VERY unhealthy. In the last few years, I have been making sure that my actions show how much I care for the welfare of the children in the community.
Halloween Silliness – Our Halloween Party and Dance was originally scheduled for the day after Halloween. This is called All Saints Day so several of us dressed as saints. Can you guess them?
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I too have come to believe in foregoing these fake treats for Halloween. If we are to give children worthy treats they should be healthy. I am opting for Halloween coloring books and crayons/markers this year. And for those with a sweet tooth- small boxes of organic raisins.
Good to hear Denise! Love to hear how they are received.
Thanks for sharing. I will save the ideas for next year.
I am a child of the 60s, and remember getting home made popcorn balls, apples and cookies along with all the junk.
That is until someo sicko put needles in the apples he was handing out, and some kids in our town spent the night in A&E. The next year some idiot decided injecting candy with narcotics was funny.
The result was that we started doing our own parties, and only going to people our parents knew for trick or treating.
At our own party we had all the home made yummy-ness and an excuse to make spook houses and win prizes . Win-win if you ask me!