Trick-or-Treating with Food Allergies – The Tooth Fairy Saves Halloween!

Halloween is scary enough without worrying about a possible allergic reaction

Holidays are ridiculously hard for families with food allergies.

Most Halloween candies contain or may contain peanuts and tree nuts.

Thanksgiving and Christmas desserts almost always contain wheat, gluten, dairy and eggs.

You can basically forget accepting an invitation to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Many food allergy families have come up with unique and creative ways to handle the holidays without removing the fun and tradition that goes along with it.  You’ll see this very soon with my new allergy friendly e-cookbook that I will publish online for you to download free of charge that has many easy holiday recipes for your family to quickly prepare and safely enjoy.

But since Halloween comes first, I want to focus on that for now as it is exceptionally challenging.

Halloween candy is the bane of my existence. While I love dressing up and scaring all the trick-or-treating kiddos who ring my bell and dumping a load of candy into their bags, as a mother, I have grown concerned about excessive sugar intake in my kids as well as the potential for dental damage from sweets in addition to the food allergy problem.

Last year, we took our kids out to Trick-or-Treat.  We explained that most of the candy they got wouldn’t be safe for them to eat with their peanut, tree nut, dairy and egg allergies.  So we were sure to buy extra candy that was safe so we could exchange it for the unsafe candy. My husband took the unsafe candy to work with him the next day to share with his co-workers and the kids still got candy they could safely enjoy.

This was a great compromise for the kids. They could still participate in the Halloween tradition of going door to door in their costumes, greeting the neighbors with “Trick or Treat!” and enjoying the other costumes the other kids were wearing.  We all had a great time.

However, as time went on, and Halloween was over, there was still a lot of candy…pure sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial dyes and just pure nastiness.  They constantly asked for candy. All they wanted to eat was candy. Candy candy candy candy…  I pictured rotting teeth, elevated blood sugar, tummy aches and hyperactive children bouncing off the walls.

What a nightmare.

So I came up with a new idea that I hope we will use this year, and I wanted to share my plan with all of you food allergy moms and dads and also parents who are just concerned with their children having too much sugar.

The Tooth Fairy Saves Halloween

I will toot my own horn here, because I feel that this idea is just friggin brilliant.  Not only will this work for everyone, but kids with food allergies will not feel like they are singled out specifically because of their food allergies and sensitivities!

Have a safe and fun Halloween, and start a new tradition! (c) 2011

Here’s the plan:

1. Print out the flier:  The Tooth Fairy Saves Halloween!
2. Explain the concept on the flier to your kids, how sugar is bad for you in so many ways and that the Tooth Fairy wants to offer all kids gifts and money for their candy to protect their health and their teeth.
3. Follow the directions on the flier – go trick-or-treating, save a few pieces of candy to eat, leave the rest for the Tooth Fairy, go to sleep, wake up and find money or a new present from the Tooth Fairy.

You see how well this would work for a child with food allergies? And the bonus is that the flier says NOTHING about food allergies.  It’s just talking about how bad sugar is for the body and your teeth, so all kids, regardless of their special dietary needs, can do this and your food allergic children won’t feel singled out!

I think it’s brilliant, if I do say so myself.  Yes, I am patting myself on the back, figuratively speaking.

I encourage you to download and print the image (make sure you print in landscape format), and pass the fliers out to your friends too.  See how many of your child’s playmates will get on board with this.  Start a new Halloween tradition without throwing out the old and well-liked Trick-or-Treating fun!

Share this link with your friends if you think this is a great idea for Halloween!