Swapping out the SUGAR!

To follow on from my last blog; I hope you had a fabulous Halloween!

While I was trick-or-treating with my 2 year old, I met another mother who has instrumented a 'replacement-candy' activity for her children for the last 10 years.....and I think it's genius.

To explain: she takes them to Whole Foods before Halloween and together they choose a vast array of 'replacement-candy' - no, this isn't some 'trick-to-replace-the-treats', this really is just a healthier version of the candy her kids will collect on Halloween. By 'healthier', I mean that it is free from artificial colorings and flavorings, and is often less processed and more pure....yes, pure sugar maybe, but at least it doesn't have glitter and glue in it too, not to mention the ingredients one needs a pHD in Chemistry to translate.....

Her children (now 10 yrs and 5 yrs old), dress up like everyone else and have a fabulous evening trick-or-treating with their friends, fully motivated to collect as much candy as possible because they know that later they will swap it out for their cherished replacement candy. On their return home, they choose a piece of replacement candy for each piece of regular candy that they have collected, and both parents and children feel satisfied. I love it.

If some of you feel that this is a great idea but a 1-for-1 swap for replacement candy still leaves a lot of sugar floating around the house, then choose another ratio....10-for-1, whatever, but at least you know that your children will be on a real-sugar-high rather than a fake-foods-overload?!

And as a final word - I have seen a multitude of facebook posts about how to deal with this holiday....do you let your children gorge as much candy as they want during the WE, ending up with stomach aches and soaring blood-sugar levels (not to mention mood swings!), or do you ration the candy and end up eating it from now until Christmas? Well my last blog focuses on this and to reiterate, my advice is to enjoy the holiday or WE and then GET RID OF THE REGULAR CANDY. I recommended throwing it out in my last blog, but I know that this does not sit well with a vast majority..... instead, in our house, we bag it all up and send it to work with my husband....alternatively, I saw that my son's school had a huge donation box for left-over candy which they were sending out to the soldiers. So if you don't like the idea of waste, think about who would enjoy receiving some candy, but for goodness sake, don't leave it in YOUR kitchen unless you have a willpower of steel and don't feel haunted by its presence!