Keep Up Your Clean Food Routine This Halloween!
Halloween is just around the corner. Halloween has changed a lot for me over the past two years. It used to be a holiday of hiding candy for myself and eating tons of it for weeks, but now I don’t eat any of it. I don’t even want to eat any of it. I know many of you do, though, so here are some tricks to help you stay on track:
- Write down your motivations to get healthier. Remind yourself about how bad you feel when you eat all those processed candies.
- Find healthier alternatives so you won’t feel deprived.
- If you are going to a party, bring your healthy alternatives with you! You think you’ll be able to resist all those cookies and candies, but if you’re hungry and you don’t have something else to satisfy your craving, you might give in to temptation!
- Get the kid’s candy out of the house so you aren’t tempted to steal it and eat it. I have some ideas for that, so just keep reading.
- Remind your family that you are trying to feel good and be healthy. Ask them not to sabotage you by offering you candy or trying to convince you to splurge. It’s just one day, but you don’t want to lose the momentum you have going. It’s a lot easier to stay on the wagon. Once you fall off, it can be hard to get up and jump back on.
I am hoping to convince my kids not to eat too much of their candy. I want them to have fun and don’t mind them eating some candy, but they always get an insane amount of it. My family stopped eating processed foods at home about a year and a half ago, so our kids aren’t used to eating tons of sugar and hydrogenated oils and food coloring. Last Halloween, our eight-year-old munched on candy the entire time he was trick-or-treating, and then he threw it all up. I think it’s going to be easier to convince him that he shouldn’t pig out this year.
Here are some ideas that might help your kids from eating too much candy at Halloween:
- Pick up some healthier treats and candies (or trinkets) from the store before Halloween. After your kids trick-or-treat, allow them to trade their candies for the healthier stuff. Maybe you could trade a healthy dark chocolate bar for 6 pieces of junk candy, or maybe a small baggie of dried fruit could be traded for bags of junk gummies.
- Allow them to trade candy for toys.
- Trade them a set amount of money per pound of candy.
- Many dentists have a program where they will give money to kids in exchange for candy and then donate the candy to our troops!
- Ask the Halloween Witch to visit your house and leave something fun in exchange for the bag of candy. Or maybe you’ll get a visit from the Great Pumpkin!
- Instead of eating all that candy, make some healthy treats together. Making treats with kids is fun. Well, it can be fun, as long as they don’t get into arguments about who’s getting to do the “fun” stuff… “I only got to break one egg! John got to break all the rest!”
This website has lots of Halloween-themed food ideas. Here are some of the recipes that are featured. I’m definitely going to try one or two of these with my kids!
Roasted Sweet Potato Jack-o-Lantern Faces and Ghosts by Guava Rose (AIP compliant)
Ghost Bananas and Tangerine Pumpkins by Weelicious (Could be AIP if made with carob instead of chocolate)
Monster Teeth Apple Bites by Fork and Beans (to make this AIP compliant, you could use little sticks of parsnip or jicima instead of sunflower seeds for teeth and use coconut butter to attach the tongue)
Paleo Ghost Truffles by Living Healthy With Chocolate
Jack-o-Lantern Fruit Plate by Wholesome Dinner Tonight (AIP compliant)
Stuffed Pepper Jack-O-Lanterns by Primally Inspired
Paleo Halloween Cookies by Mellow Momma
Halloweenies by Nom Nom Paleo (to make this AIP compliant, use AIP ketchup and replace sunflower seeds with little parsnip or jicima sticks for the eyes)
I think I’ll start with the creepy apple mouths. It looks super easy, and that’s one the kids can make on their own. I’m pretty sure my middle schoolers will take the idea and come up with something creepier. We used to make candy-cane reindeer at Christmas. At first, they made them the normal way, with pipe cleaner antlers and a red pom-pom nose, but it didn’t take long for them to start competing for who could give their reindeer the biggest, most colorful pom-pom afro. At least they’re creative!
Happy Halloween!!!