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Halloween Treats - the healthy way!!!
It's the only time of the year I find myself buying crappy sweets and boxes of cheap chocolates to give away - feeling under pressure to play the game. But our kids don't need more sugar - so I'm going to try amd make a workable list of alternatives...
- Why not give out other little gifts? Pens, pencils, balloons, fake tattoos, stickers - or even tooth brushes!!!
- For home (maybe not so suitable for Trick or Treaters) you can make little 'Vampire bites' by slicing apples into thin long slices and spreading nut butter in the middle, with some bleaches almonds as teeth! Any nut butter in the middle makes a tasty healthy snack...
- Mix nuts and chocolate nuts, this will reduce the sugar and the protein in the nuts will balance their blood sugars a little bit more than pure chocolate...
- I'm not a fan of Baby Bells but it is a cheese that is suitable for Trick or Treat...and again, the protein is a good way of balancing the effects of the sugar. So when they all get home with their bags of goodies, it's no bad thing to have cheese cubes ready to go...
- Fruit is an obvious option, not always well received, but still good to try.
- Small toys...if you can buy a pack of little somethings that can be given out in singles...
- Do you have any old Christmas Crackers lurking anywhere? Or anything else that goes bang!
- Apples dipped in chocolate is better than apples dipped in toffee, as the latter can really damage teeth.
- Even packets of crisps might be a better option than more sweet things! Still junk food but slightly less damaging.
- Better still would be salty nuts, preferably not peanuts but almonds or cashews, and in an ideal world freshly salted/roasted and salted by you so you know the salt is a healthy sea salt and is lightly used without any added MSG. In tiny bags...
- Little juice cartons - again, not a huge amount of difference perhaps between fruit juice and sugar but at least you can limit the other nasty additives in many sweets. If you buy them in packs and only give one out it's not too expensive.
All other ideas welcome! Happy Halloween everybody - it only comes once a year so lets enjoy it and make the most of the family time together. Don't be scared to have some fun!!!