Tag Archives: hfcs

Beyond the Sugar Crazed Rush of Halloween

Goodness, my kids had too much sugar yesterday. Considering that under normal circumstances, if we have candy they get one piece a day, and yesterday we pretty much didn’t worry about consumption…

homemade halloween costumes

Let’s just say kids on a sugar high are pretty interesting.

It’s one of the few days a year that I allow so much freedom with sugar. It’s going to take months to eat everything they picked up trick or treating last night, because the one piece a day rule goes right back into effect.

They got an early start too. We took them to my husband’s parents’ house for a visit, and they took the kids across the street to show off the costumes to a neighbor. Who of course gave them little bags of candy.

When we got back home, so did a neighbor, because she wasn’t going to be home to see them in the evening.

Overall, this makes me really glad I don’t give them access to a lot of candy all year. Not to mention how nice it is that Halloween was on a Friday, so they have two days to wind back down before school is in session again. They need it.

All this makes me really glad that I do so much cooking from scratch. Much easier to avoid HFCS and such in other foods when you do that. Besides, homemade bread is so much better tasting!

I am a believer in moderation, but with things like HFCS moderation is more challenging than many think. I pretty much accept that it’s going to be in most of the candy my kids got for Halloween, as is food coloring.

Cooking with fresh fruits and vegetables, making my own sauces and spice mixes, allowing only 100% fruit juice when they have juice, and so forth, cuts back the potential sources delightfully.

I know some people would soonest avoid it altogether, and either don’t do trick or treating, or take or trade away the candy so obtained, but that’s just not me.

As for winding the kids down, just now they’re painting. I’m encouraging a lot of creative and active play today to work the excitement out of their systems. Seems to be working. They’ve gone from arguing all morning to playing very nicely together this afternoon.