Not-so-great Halloween Candy Debate

Tomorrow is that blessed holiday that allows children (and some adults) to dress up as their favorite ghoul or character and march happily around in public! Just for some icing on top of their cakes, they are also encouraged to visit stranger's homes and ask for sweets! What a great tradition, huh?

With childhood obesity on the steady rise, there has been a push from toy companies to give out toy treats instead of caloric ones. Nutritionists say to avoid dishing out candies and instead give boxes of raisins (which are also sweet like candy, they argue). Now, when I was 5 I would have been very happy to receive a package of Play-Doh! So I am not saying that these suggestions are absurd, don't misunderstand me. But have you ever recieved a box of raisins in your huge bag of loot? Even if you enjoy raisins every other day, it's like finding a cat turd in your bag! It's just AWFUL and they'll get thrown out with the open wrappers and Necco wafers. ugh!

I appreciate that the idea behind the raisins is "have a more healthy holiday, and don't forget that fruit is nature's candy!" But a single box or two of raisins mixed in with 6 pounds of candy bars isn't going to save a child from diabetes. The natural raisin sugar will be digested as a simiple carbohydrate just like the ones in the Twix. No different. The 1/2 oz of fiber found in that box of raisins is also, not likely to help(as in WON'T) balance blood sugar.

So what do you do when you and your conscience are standing in the grocery with a JUMBO mixed bag of candy in one hand and a bag of boxed raisins in the other? My advice is to get the bag of candy. I'm going to be strung up by my nutritionist cohorts, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one. I do not see it as the responsibility of the neighbors to give out healthful treats, not when the goal is to acquire a mountain of garbage, as my mother always put it.

I believe it to be the responsibility of the parents to have rules at home regarding what, how much, and when the loot can be eaten. My brother and I always worked very hard to get as much candy as we could, but then my mother allowed us to only eat a certain amount that night. We would spend more time dividing it all into piles and trading with each other. Over the next few days she kept her eye on it and soon the allure of the candy waned. By Thanksgiving we still had more than half of what we had brought in, and it was by then that we had to throw out the rest. I think she told us that it had gotten too old. Very tricky, way to go Mom!

From this I had learned that it was more fun to dress up and GET the candy than it was to actually eat it all. After one or two bad stints during which I snuck 10 too many pieces and got ill I learned that the dream of the eating all the candy was much nicer than the reality. It's a very important lesson to learn and to carry with you forever!

But that's just MY opinion. If you want raisins you'll have to go next door because I'm giving out chocolate bars.