Happy Halloween!

This blog is directed to my American audience; I have never experienced such an amazing celebration of the ghost and the ghoolies as I have since living in this country! And as much as I feel the urge to inspire us all to offer dried fruit and home-baked cookies as alternatives to candy tomorrow, I am old and ugly enough to know that this would be nothing short of a waste of time!!

Instead, I encourage you to enjoy this fun-filled holiday, and embrace the wonderful tradition of the costumes and candy with an open mind and a generous spirit. For those of us with little children in the house, it is often the art of trick or treating which is as much anticipated as the sweet treats themselves....sweet treats which DO NOT need to last from now until Christmas! My advice to you all is to throw yourselves into your activities tomorrow, chocolates and candies to boot, and then get rid of all the left over candy after the week-end. That's right, I'm advising that you THROW IT AWAY. Wasteful? Well, that depends on your definition....if having sugar/artificial coloring/artificial flavoring - filled children for the next 2 months is your idea of heaven, then stop reading this right now, but if not, and if you value your health and your waistline(!), then throwing candy in the trash is not wasteful, but healthful.

As a side-note - it seems like some conspiracy theory that the beginning of the flu-season coincides with this sugar-filled celebration .... at the best of times, sugar is not exactly firm friends with our immune system, so the sugar-binging effect of Halloween definitely leaves us immune-compromised. As I said at the beginning of this blog, I don't want to kill this holiday, but I urge you to limit the candy-overload to just this week end .... and with it, give yourselves a fighting chance of staying healthy this winter!

Happy Halloween!