Tricks and Treats for a Healthy Halloween

Trick-or-treating is a tradition for many families and neighborhoods as children dress up in cute and creative costumes and go door-to-door asking for sweets. But don’t be tricked – Halloween is a big business that revolves around sugary sweet candy. Americans spend about $7 billion each year on everything from candy to costumes and decorations and we spend 1 to 3% more each year. The typical household spends about $21 on Halloween candy, amounting to $2 billion per year collectively. All that sugar can leave your tummy and your wallet with a severe post-Hallows Eve hangover when November rolls around.

Ghostess with the Mostess

Having a couple of ghouls and guys over for a party this Halloween? Offer your guests some healthy options like a Frankenstein veggie plate! Place green snap peas on an oval platter to make the monster’s head, and add olives for his hair and mouth. Two cucumbers topped with an olive each will make his eyes and you can add  baby carrots to make the bolts in his neck!

For a sweet treat that will give you a serving of fruit, make some ghostly yogurt frozen bananas. Start with several large bananas cut in half and frozen for 30 minutes. Insert wooden sticks on one end and dip them in vanilla yogurt. Add mini chocolate chips for their eyes and freeze on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper until ready to serve.

If your guests include little ones, try making some pumpkin pie play dough! It smells wonderful because of the pumpkin pie spice, vanilla and maple extracts. If you make enough small dough balls early, you can even give these out to trick-or-treaters as an alternative to candy!

Tricks-and-Treats

If you’ve got a steady stream of adorable little superheroes, ballerinas, witches and zombies at your door on Halloween night, consider handing out something on the healthier side. Clementines can be a fun giveaway: just draw pumpkin or jack-o-lantern faces right onto a clementine with a permanent marker! They also make a festive orange addition to a school lunch and are a clever way to sneak in a serving of fruit.

You’ll see more store-bought healthy options from several companies this year, including Mediterranean Snacks, which offers a line of baked lentil chips and crackers to give trick-or-treaters. Another option is to hand out individually wrapped bags of pretzels or popcorn to offset the sugar they’ll get from all directions. Other fresh alternatives are single serving bags of sugar snap peas and nuts that deal a satisfying crunch.

A Treat for Grownups

Halloween is a great time for neighbors to meet or get reacquainted as they catch up while the kiddies are gathering goodies. Along with treats for the kids, you can offer a cold shot of 24K™ with a business card to tired parents looking for a bit more energy to get through trick-or-treating. Be sure to let them know that there’s no sugar or caffeine, so they won’t experience a crash. Visit our Vistaprint store to order some business cards so they can call you when they want to know more about Reliv!

Check out our “Fall into Reliv” board on Pinterest for more great decorating and entertaining ideas for the season. Share your ideas with us by pinning them with the “@Reliv” tag.

Sources:

http://money.msn.com/shopping-deals/article.aspx?post=2885cf08-40b2-4b08-8a3b-42d17dff01ec

http://www.livescience.com/16768-candy-americans-eat-halloween.html

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/10-healthy-halloween-treats.htm

http://www.cookinglight.com/entertaining/holidays-occasions/healthy-halloween-00412000068114/