Healthy Halloween With Candy Management and Real Food

by Melissa Dawn Lierman on October 30th, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Halloween is a greatly anticipated event by children of all ages. Once a kid is old enough to figure out how it works and that you can knock on someone's door or ring the doorbell and say the secret password and you get candy...watch out! It's going to be quite a year for my 3 year old because he is a Sugar Baby [inherited from Sugar Daddy] and his going to go C-R-A-Z-Y this year!

We are the cool house to hang out at and have a great neighborhood to go trick-or-treating because we live in an area that is great for candy collecting. Plus, we host an annual Halloween dinner at our house. Our friends bring the wine and I make my famous 5x5 baked chili [5 kinds of meat + 5 kinds of beans] with all of the fixin's like shredded cheese, sour cream, and a variety of hot sauces for those that want to kick it up a notch. I also make sure that I have a huge tray of fresh veggies all cut up and ready to go for the entire night. If the party goes late we either make nachos or order pizza to have some salty foods to balance out all of the sugar consumption.

Two great moms I met on Twitter, Angelle and Susan from NourishMD, have a downloadable information .pdf all about how to have a healthy party and make healthy choices that is great for your own parties or even parties at school [see link below at the very bottom of this post]. Some healthy food suggestions from them include: celery sticks with nut butters or peanut butter, whole grain crackers and cheese, whole grain english muffin mini-pizzas, ham or turkey and cheese roll-ups pitas that can be sliced into bite-sized spirals, and cheese or bean quesadillas sliced up into bite-sized triangle pieces.

When the kids are finally done trick-or-treating and come back to our party for the final time... the big candy dump begins. Each kid gets a zone and then dumps out their entire candy collection. So as the kids are sorting and oohing and aahing over their candy and trying to stuff their faces with as much as possible, Mom is going through it with them.

I make multiple pass throughs or sweeps of their candy collections:
- 1st sweep, I take out anything that doesn't look safe or is open [for whatever reason] - it's not worth taking a chance.
- 2nd sweep, I pull out all of the non-negotiables [as my health coach Angelle Batten calls it]. The non-negotiables for me are candy that squirts red-dye blood, gross gummy products like those huge hamburgers, or eyeballs, or things that squirt out gross red fake blood dye.
- 3rd sweep are the full size candy bars. I have gallon sized plastic bags and I have one labelled with a sharpie for each person in the house and take all the full size candy bars and put them in bags and take them downstairs to the big freezer right away for later consumption.
- 4th sweep is me helping them make a pile of all the candy that they don't actually like.

Any candy that the kids don't like can have so many great destinations:
- Super fun candy swapping. I love to watch the kids exchanging, swapping, bargaining, and trading their candy.
- Donations of candy for their teachers, the grand-parents, their babysitter, and even neighbors that are too old to trick-or-treat.
- Donations of candy to local area homeless shelters or soup kitchens.
- Mailing the extras to the soliders overseas.
- Trading in their candy for money with their parents or local area dentists that have a trade-in program.

According to Angelle and Susan of NourishMD it is so important to talk with your kids ahead of time about your plan. Also, be sure to talk to about in a positive manner explaining how you are going to share your candy with people who don't get to go trick-or-treating anymore, how they need to eat some REAL food before they go out eating candy and in between eating candy, and how there might be some candy they just can't have. Get them to buy into the whole process of Candy Management [but you don't have to call it that!].

Candy Management and REAL Food can make your Halloween Healthy, Happy, and Fun! Share with us how your manage all of your Halloween Candy. Share Your Family's Halloween Traditions.

MELISSA LIERMAN OF TIMEOUTMOM.COM
MELISSA LIERMAN is a Wonder Woman of 39 Years, Wife of John 14 Years [middle school teacher], and Mother of 3 wonderful kids - MacKenzie Peter Age 11 [techno computer, blackberry loving, sensitive, guitar playing son], Maria Stella Age 9 [artistic and creative getting her soul filled each day at her first year at a performing arts school] , and Jonathan Roger Age 3 [lives to make you laugh and is the life of the party no matter wherever he goes!]. Melissa loves to help Moms to Maximize their Time with Systems, Tools, and Organization! Put yourself in a TimeOutMom and listen to her weekly Blog Talk Radio Show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/timeoutmom. Check out her blog http://www.timeoutmom.blogspot.com for her latest tips, tricks, and systems to help with your family management.

ANGELLE BATTEN & SUSAN MCCREADIE of NOURISHMD.COM

ANGELLE BATTEN, HHC, MEd - "The most important thing for parents is to raise healthy, happy children, but they don't know how to get there." says Angelle. As a certified Holistic Health Coach, Angelle walks parents through an increasingly challenging and confusing path to create health and happiness for their families.

SUSAN MCCREADIE, MD - as a board certified pediatrician specializing in holistic medicine, my vision is to heal children with any illness, naturally. "I started Pediatric Holistic Medicine, PLC. I continue to learn daily how to help myself and others heal; it’s a journey and lifelong passion, and I love every minute of it!" says Dr. Sue McCreadie.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

ARTICLE: Candy and More Candy, by Angelle Batten of NourishMD

ARTICLE: Sugar Sweet Sugar, by Dr. Sue McCreadie of NourishMD

ARTICLE: The Halloween Trade-In, by NourishMD

ARTICLE: Healthy Parties - Parties can both fun and Healthy, by NourishMD [downloadable document]

EXCERPTS for this blog post were taken from a the TimeOutMom Blog Talk Radio Show that aired on October 7, 2010 - The REAL Health Show for Kids - Talking about Sugar, Diabetes and your Kids - with expert guests Angelle Batten and Dr. Sue McCreadie of NourishMD.com.