Trick or treat? How to handle Halloween healthily!

Halloween is nearly here and it’s a time where your children will bring back more treats than you know what to do with. It’s fine for children to have treats on the odd occasion but with an endless supply of sweet treats here are a few ideas to help stop sugar hit.

• First things first fill up before you head out, give children dinner before they go out treat or treating, they’ll be less likely to fill up on sweets when they get home.
• Offer to “buy back” their sweets to trade in for a non-food reward, such as a toy, game, or activity (i.e. a trip to the local ice-skating rink or laser tag, etc.)
• Try to ration treats to a maximum of 3-4 in a week.
• Donate the excess sweets to a food bank.
• Save the extra sweets for the days and weeks ahead so use them in baking or you could even challenge your family to come up with a healthy dessert or snack using only a small bit of the leftover treats as a garnish or topping.

• Consider purchasing non-food treats for those who visit your home, such as stickers, glow sticks, erasers or bubbles.
• If you do hand out some sweet treats, get bitesize versions or smaller sweets and ask children to only take one each.
• Handout healthier alternatives to sweets and chocolate like a box of raisins, trail mix, pretzels or try making our Ghoulish Gingerbread.

Halloween doesn’t need to frighten off your healthy habits! Get creative with fresh fruit and veggies to make these spooky snacks that the kids will love

(click for recipes!)

Banana Ghosts

Fruity Frankenstein

Stuffed Pepperkins

Frankentoast