Trick-or-treating Dilemma: What to Do With All That Halloween Candy?!?
| October 25, 2012 | Posted by Stacy under Halloween Candy |
With Halloween less than a week away, the question on many parents’ minds is: what on earth to do with all that candy?!? In the past two years, I’ve done Switch Witch with my three kids (ages 7 and 4 x 2). Here’s the gist: They eat as much candy as they want on Halloween night and then pick 10 more pieces to save. Then, while they are sleeping, the Switch Witch comes and takes the rest in exchange for an awesome new toy.
My children like the concept of Switch Witch and do it voluntarily (in other words, they can chose to keep the candy…but then no toy.). In my mind, it seemed like a good alternative to consuming obscene amounts of sugar and all sorts of artificial yuck. But as it turns out, there is a potential downside: Switch Witch solves the immediate problem, but it doesn’t teach them how to manage all the candy and other treats that they’re bombarded with almost everywhere we go.
That’s what Ellyn Satter, R.D., a renowned expert on feeding children, pointed out to me when I consulted her on the topic. She then referred me to her website, where I found a telling passage from her book Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming:
“Halloween candy presents a learning opportunity. Work toward having your child be able to manage his own stash. For him to learn, you will have to keep your interference to a minimum. When he comes home from trick or treating, let him lay out his booty, gloat over it, sort it and eat as much of it as he wants. Let him do the same the next day. Then have him put it away and relegate it to meal– and snack-time: a couple of small pieces at meals for dessert and as much as he wants for snack time. If he can follow the rules, your child gets to keep control of the stash. Otherwise, you do, on the assumption that as soon as he can manage it, he gets to keep it. Offer milk with the candy, and you have a chance at good nutrition.”*
You may find the idea of allowing a child, especially a young one, to eat all of that candy a little hard to swallow. It certainly is for me! And perhaps you’re questioning Satter’s advice right now. But she isn’t alone in her thinking. Other experts, including Dina Rose, Ph.D., of It’s Not About Nutrition: The Art and Science of Teaching Kids to Eat Right, agree that it’s important to teach children to how to deal with candy overload—and not by taking it away from them or secretly dumping some in the trash.
For starters, Rose says, you should talk to your gobblin about how Halloween candy and other sweets should fit into his overall diet. Explain how fresh, natural foods (like apples, broccoli and fish) will help him grow; they’re the ones that we should eat most often. “Fun” foods are more processed and come from a package or contain added sugar or salt (think Goldfish crackers, chocolate milk and yogurt tubes); we should eat them less frequently–maybe once or twice a day. Treats like ice cream and candy aren’t so good for your body and should be eaten only once or twice a week or saved for special occasions (like Halloween!). Mind you, this is a conversation that you should have with your child on a regular basis, not just around the holidays.
Then, after trick-or-treating is all said and done, Rose has a cool idea: Instead of just gobbling it down, encourage your child to taste test his candy. “The ‘hidden’ problem with Halloween is that it teaches kids to eat what they have, not what they want, ” Rose explains. To combat this eat-everything-in-sight mentality, have your child take a small bite from any (and every) candy that looks appealing to him. Then, ask him to compare the way the different candies feel in his hands, mouth and tummy. The ultimate goal, she says, is to help him find his favorites. Then, you can urge him to hold onto his favorites and toss the rest. With her own daughter, Rose has even gone so far as to buy her more of her favorite picks in exchange for dumping her least favorite. Yes, it sounds a little crazy, but it also makes a lot of sense: Don’t just eat for eating’s sake!
Chris of the blog Spoonfed: Raising Kids to Think About the Food They Eat has another interesting strategy. After bringing home her haul, she helps her daughter sort through it and weed out anything with trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and gelatin (because they are vegetarians). The reject pile either gets a one-way ticket to the trash or is saved and used to decorate gingerbread houses at holiday time. (In case you’re wondering, the gingerbread houses ultimately end up being tossed, too.)
Whatever you decide, it’s a good idea to let your children know the game plan ahead of time, so they know what to expect. I haven’t figured out our plan yet but we still have a few more days to decide. Last week, I told my kids that I didn’t think we’d be doing Switch Witch this year. Then I asked them what we should do with all that Halloween candy. Their unanimous response: “Throw it in the garbage!” Which made me laugh because it isn’t something that I’ve ever suggested. And somehow, I think they’ll be changing their minds on that one.
If worse comes to worse, I figure we can always use some of it to do some science experiments.
What’s your plan for handling Halloween candy this year? Keep it? Dump it? Use it for a gingerbread house? Science experiments? All of the above? Please leave your thoughts below!
*Copyright © 2008 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com.
I created this blog to raise awareness and start a dialogue about the various issues involved in school food. By writing about it, I hope to provide parents and educators with ideas and inspiration for making healthy changes in their own schools. Since healthy eating habits start at home, I also address common feeding challenges faced by parents.
We do the switch witch idea, but we call it “The Great Pumpkin”. I do let them still keep a decent amount of candy, but I like to get rid of the extras. My youngest is having some food sensitivities (we think, we are in the process of ruling them out), and for his own sake I have decided to start with a little bit less. Although, I have read some of Satter’s books, and do think letting them handle their own stash is a good idea.
I have to disagree with Dina Rose that packaged process crap like goldfish crackers, yogurt tubes and chocolate milk should be considered “fun foods” and eaten once or twice a day. That stuff is somehow so much better than candy that it’s okay to eat it 7 to 14 times more often? Chocolate milk IS candy! Most brands of yogurt tubes have 8 or 9 teaspoons of sugar in one serving! How about teaching kids to call this stuff “processed crap” instead of “fun foods”??
Suzanne — my thoughts exactly!
Suzanne — my thoughts exactly!
Our kids get to eat as much as they want Halloween night (which is very hard for me to watch) and then they get to keep 10 pieces each. They do quite a bit of trading amongst each other. We often give the rest to late trick or treaters because we usually run out and then the rest goes to the candy fairy who leaves them all money.
Suzanne, just to clarify: Dina Rose is NOT saying to eat the “fun foods” once or twice a day. If you read her blog, you’ll see that she’s actually a big real food proponent and generally discourages yogurt tubes and chocolate milk. She actually says that families should decide how often to eat fun foods and gives a “twice a day” guideline–but if your family doesn’t want to eat them at all, I’m guessing that she would say “Good for you!” I’m also guessing that her audience is people who need help getting off processed foods, which you don’t! And I don’t want to sit here defending yogurt tubes (which taste disgustingly sweet to me), but they actually have 8 or 9 GRAMS of sugar, not teaspoons. There are 4 grams in a teaspoon. So that’s about 2 teaspoons of sugar, and some of it is natural from the milk. I totally see your point that we should stop tiptoeing around and talk more frankly to our kids about what’s in these processed foods that everyone’s eating. Nothing “fun” about processed foods that only make our kids crave more processed foods.
Here’s a link to a listing of how many grams and teaspoons of sugar are in various yogurt tubes: http://www.achildgrows.com/how-much-sugar-does-your-yogurt-have/
According to this, Trader Joe’s Organic Lowfat Yogurt Squishers have 36 grams of sugar — 9 teaspoons. YoBaby has 22 grams of sugar. Other brands are in between. It’s only the plain yogurts that have acceptable amounts of sugar. But my main point is the idea of calling these “fun” foods. I’d much rather have my kid ask, “Mom, can I have some processed crap today?” rather than, “Can I have some fun foods?” Let’s call it what it is.
I agree…calling them “fun foods” is a little misleading. I think some of this stuff may depend on the exact food that you’re talking about. Some foods falling into the “fun food” category are going to be much worse than others. Like, a homemade pumpkin muffin made with whole wheat flour and flaxseeds versus a tube of GoGurt. I am not sure that the article that you refer to is talking about yogurt tubes. The Stonyfield Farms yogurt tubes that I saw in the grocery store have 10 grams of sugar. According to Stonyfield’s website, about half of that is from naturally occurring sugars in milk. That leaves about 5 grams as added sugar…or about 1.25 teaspoons. Since the tube is only 2 ounces, that’s still quite a bit (which you can tell if you taste one…no wonder kids like them so much!). Stonyfield’s YoKids Greek yogurt (a 4-ounce container) has 16 ounces of sugar. So ounce for ounce, the yogurt tubes do seem to be more “jacked up” with added sugar.
Yup, I agree with Suzanne, the whole paradigm has to change…the eat-everything-in-sight mentality is not the first one that we have to change. Consider if we changed our thought process back to ” a treat is a treat.…not a staple” and brought out the processed foods (or even better, homemade cookies or goodies) once a week, and that includes fruit juice and goldfish crackers and granola bars. If we make the switch to eating whole foods then the eat-everything-in sight won’t matter so much because (and keep in mind, I am not advocating an eat everything in sight mentality) it’s nutrient dense, and all of a sudden our bodies tell us what they need. We start to eat intuitively again. Ahhhh.….it is a dream of mine!! In the meantime, I have a 8 year old, a six year old and a 4 year old who are geared up to go trick or treating come Halloween. So last year we did the week long candy countdown…day 1– 7 candies, day 2– 6 candies, day 3– 5 candies and so on and so forth until day 7 and everything else was turfed. We eat gluten free so everything with gluten is tossed first and we weed out the worst of the candy.….then I buy Yummy Earth lollipops and fair trade chocolate and we switch.…they have the choice to switch or not,sometimes they do, sometime they don’t but I like to give them a healthy-er choice.
JT, it’s a dream of mine, too! Our food culture is so out of whack, it’s depressing! I like your idea of trading some of the candy for healthier options. It seems like a good way to teach them to pay attention to what’s in their food.
Great conversation going on here about Halloween candy. Personally, I think that the sugar in yogurt, chocolate milk, etc. is a lot more damaging to habits than Halloween candy. Actually, the news is even worse when you start to consider how nutritiously void most of the stuff we give our kids really is: Goldfish Crackers, Graham Crackers, Animal Crackers.
I call these food “fun foods” because most people think they’re healthy and aren’t willing to live in a world without them. Indeed, these foods fall under the radar for most parents who are already on the lookout for ice cream, cookies and candy.
What’s more, nutritionists often recommend these items.
As for Halloween, I think there are a lot of lessons kids can learn from this holiday, including how to cut back on sweets and treats in anticipation of Halloween (and how to take a break from sweets and treats afterwards) as well as how to manage their own stash, which, by the way, I think they can start doing from the very beginning. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be guidelines. But I would set those guidelines with the children—how many pieces they can have each day—and then let them eat those pieces whenever they want.
On Halloween we have only one rule: don’t throw up. (And in case you think that’s a silly rule, think about it as preparation for Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.)
Dina
http://www.itsnotaboutnutrition.com
Thanks so much for clarifying, Dina, and for all the great advice! Your blog has been a go-to for me since I discovered it a few months ago. Parents can really learn a lot from it!
It bums me out that so many nutritionists cater to the lowest common denominator when it comes to processed junk. I just finished reading “Bringing Up Bebe,” which I gather is similar to “French Kids Eat Everything” in its portrayal of how the French feed their kids. Certainly in France no one would be calling Goldfish Crackers “fun foods.” I think it’s a gross overstatement to say “most people think they’re healthy and aren’t willing to live without them.” The preschool my kids attend has policy of no processed foods. The parents at our school are quite willing to live without that stuff and nobody thinks it’s healthy. I wish nutritionists would hold parents and kids to higher standards. I think we are capable of rising to the occasion, but it won’t happen if nutritionists insist on labeling crap as “fun foods.”
Wish every preschool was like yours! I just caught a glimpse of all the Rice Krispie treats, store-bought cookies, Fruit Roll-ups, etc., on deck for my twins’ preschool Halloween party. Last thing they need before trick-or-treating! Sigh. Preschool director has been great in asking parents to bring healthy snacks but such requests quickly get overlooked or forgotten.
Excellent article — I remember when my kids first went trick or treating — 4 houses — then they wanted to go home at eat their candy — they didn’t quite get the concept of going to many houses! Now in their twenties, I let them make the decision and truly, there would be Halloween candy still there at Christmas time — novelty wore off. I now have a vegan daughter, elite athlete son and another at 6’2′ and 160 pounds. They’ll do the right thing if you provide healthy examples throughout the entire year.
Ann, what a great story. Thanks for the inspiration! I’ll be sure to keep the faith!
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