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Healthy Halloween Candy

September 20, 2010   29 Comments

Snack Girl visited her neighborhood Target this weekend and found Halloween candy stacked to the rafters. So, I decided I would beat out all the other healthy eating blogs on October's favorite topic - candy.

Healthy Halloween Candy

Americans are feeling guilty about giving out candy to children. With one out of three children considered overweight or obese, Halloween just isn't that fun anymore.

AND, there are the adults who have to buy candy and THEIR waistlines aren't exactly small.

Are there some great Halloween candy choices out there that will assuage our guilt so we can still have a good time?

First, you don't have to give out candy if you feel bad about it. There are little packages of play dough, stickers, plastic spider rings, etc. that kids love and are not food. (But then you will feel guilty about all that plastic going into the trash.)

Take a walk with me into the produce aisle for a choice that may get your house toilet papered! How about a dried plum? For $5 per bag, you can get about 40 individually wrapped prunes to toss into their plastic pumpkins.

At only 25 calories per prune, you are doing great for a Halloween candy and you get vitamins, fiber, protein, and potassium. They have even been implicated in cancer prevention. (Take THAT mini-Snickers bar!)

The genius here is that the people at Sunsweet wrote SUNSWEET all over the package. I have sold these to my children as "SunSweets" and they actually believed me. My kids have asked for them to be the treat in their lunch box and I now keep some in my purse for emergency snacking.

These are a fantastic way to beat that mid afternoon cookie snack because they are really sweet. I have them with a coffee to keep going when I am feeling sleepy.

If you want to learn more about prunes check out Pop-A-Prune where Sunsweet attempts to convince you that prunes are the perfect food.

I know that my Eco-Groovy readers are not going to like individually wrapped prunes, and I hear you. It seems a bit crazy to put all that packaging around a prune. My theory is that if the packaging helps my kids eat something healthy, then it is okay. They loved packaged stuff and it is REALLY difficult to convince them otherwise.

If you really don't like this idea check out: Healthy Halloween Candy: Take Two for MORE options.

Do you have any good ideas for healthy halloween candy?

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First 20 Comments: ( See all 29 )

I love Blue Diamond's cocoa roast almonds and I know they do other small nut packages as well.

I think the sunsweet prunes are a great idea.

I've been trying to figure out the point of individually wrapped prunes. It doesn't encourage my kids to eat them and it's more trash. Other than the Halloween idea, it looks like a wasteful product. FYI: I like the stuff. Just not sure about the packaging.

My husband and I tried to give out rasins one year to the kids in the neighborhood. The kids got really upset, parents even wanted the candy bars, I was shocked! So we went back to giving candy because the year we gave out raisins our house was egged and toilet papered. I would rather give candy and not have damage.

That's terrible, Mrs. Mix It. Surprised they even noticed considering kids have so much candy and use pillowcases -- I suppose they peeked into your snack bowl. We tend to go with fat free candy like Smarties. Figure it's the best of the worse.

If I handed out prunes on Halloween to the kids in my neighborhood I'd be cleaning TP out of my trees for a month.

OKAY! I get it. I will post a new healthy Halloween candy idea soon. sorry for the suggestion - I thought you might be able to slip this one by them :)

I go to Michael's craft store and get the glow bracelets. I think 15 come in the container for $1. The kids love it and they when told they could only pick one they tended to pick the glow bracelet. I like it because it's a cheap alternative and I feel better not giving out candy.

I think I'll try these with my 2 year old. I made your make ahead pancakes for Sunday morning breakfast and they were a hit! They were nice and moist and had great texture and flavor. Thanks.

One new idea for a treat is something I just found - Clif Twisted Fruit! They were at my local Sam's Club with the Power Bars and such. My kids love 'em! They're really sweet, but have NO SUGAR OR HFCS ADDED or artificial anything. (www.clifbarstore.com/detail/CLF+TWIST+MB) I bought a 24 pack as Sam's for about $11, if I remember right. Much better than a fruit snack! And they're all one piece of rope, so no pieces falling all over the place as they open the package. Yay! Our fave candy alternatives are pencils and the play-doh, as Snack Girl mentioned. I love keeping play-doh in my purse for the restaurant and such when kids get restless and have to stay in a chair. I love the glow-bracelet idea, too. Happy Halloween, all!

I don't have the guts to hand out prunes as halloween candy but it's a good idea. I have tasted these and they are delicious!

Funny story Sunsweet had a booth at an outdoor concert I attended so I got a few for free along with an insert. In the insert they kept saying 'dried plums' and referring to the juice as 'plum juice'. The word prune was nowhere to be found. I had a complete ditzy moment where I told my sister look it's plum juice! Where she explained it's prune juice too, hahaha. Their marketing techniques are working on the frazzled like me.

If I ever have kids I am totally stealing the 'sunsweet' idea, that's pure genius. My sister would only eat chicken growing up (so she thought), and for the longest time my Mom would tell her oh it's chicken-fish, chicken-pork, and she believed her and happily ate her dinner!

Wonderful idea, Lisa! My husband will like these :)

My daughter loves the cherry flavored prunes. Too bad they don't come wrapped like this. It's like eating a giant dried cherry, a much easier sell than prunes.

I think we should "choose our moments" when we say its ok to eat foods that are not so ok.......and Halloween for kids is one of them. Half the fun is just getting it. I let mine munch on it for a day or two , then throw it all out. They could care less by then and havent done too much damage to thier overall health.

Ha Ha I love the idea. You made me laugh out loud. I would like to do it for the healthiness as well as the reaction of the trick or treaters. Plus I love prunes!

Yeah, if I knew that getting our house toilet papered would be the worst of it I might buy these to hand out (hey we could always re-roll it and use it!) but the kids in our neighborhood like to throw eggs on cars which ruins paint.

I love this idea. I have been dying to buy these but couldn't justify it since they are sort of expensive and individually wrapped. I think I might try handing these out this year. I really hope nobody would egg or tp our house for it. That is so outrageous! I am shocked to hear that has happened to people for giving out unpopular treats. I don't know what I would do if I caught kids doing that. And I probably would catch them because of the way my house is set up.

I did these cute little Halloween stickers and pencils once and they bombed. I might as well have been handing out Fleishman's Yeast packets.

LOL Sarah! I remember growing up one of our neighbors handed out toothbrushes...we couldn't believe it.

I agree with Gladys, Halloween is a special occasion. I have a 2 year old so we'll probably only go to a few houses...he never gets candy so he'll get a couple of pieces and the rest will be saved for mom and dad :)

One year I gave out real fruit juice boxes and I was the hit of the neighborhood...you could hear the kids in the street yelling, "That lady's got juice boxes!!" I had to turn away the sneaky kids who tried to come back for seconds!!

OK... I have to tell you (even though we don't do Halloween) that my son laughed his butt off about this post. Ya see.... prunes were a recent solution for some (ahem) issues he had, and of course, it worked for a smooth move. lol So this really cracked him up. (no pun intended) hahahahaha

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