Halloween overload, just throw it away!
Even more terrifying than the moment when your kid dumps his candy out on the kitchen counter on Halloween night is the bowl of candy that sits on the counter, days afterwards. It’s still sitting there, isn’t it? How many times have you grabbed something out of it? Do you just take one, or is it more like 2, 3 or 4 each time? It’s just a few little bars, right? Hmmmmm.
Hopefully you discussed a plan with your children ahead of time to decide how long the candy would linger and how many pieces per day they are allowed. Remember, even normal weight children and adults shouldn’t eat (much) candy.
If having a bowl of tempting treats sitting around is as troublesome for you as it is for me, I’ll tell you what I do: for the first few days after Halloween my kids are allowed to keep their treats with the understanding that they will eat no more than 3 or 4 pieces a day. They’re good at self-regulating, but if they weren’t I would need to monitor this closely.
After a few days – seriously, just a few days – the bowl comes downstairs to the kitchen. (They’ve been hiding it in the intervening days. From me. Ahem.) Anyway, they bring the bowl downstairs and we throw the remaining candy away. Yep, in the garbage.
Before you start in with the wailing about how wasteful this is, about the amount of money that we’re throwing away, about how you could take it to a homeless shelter or your office or wherever, let me just reiterate a couple of fundamental truths of healthy eating.
- It’s not a gift to give people things that are bad for them.
- It’s not wasteful to throw away something that’s garbage.
The kids had fun collecting it, counting it, sorting it, organizing it, and of course eating it (hopefully just a little bit).
But enough already!
More than just a few days of this indulging and you’re moving into dangerous territory. The only thing to be found at the bottom of that candy bowl is a whole lot of sugar, fat and calories.
And of course, excess weight.
Much easier than trying to eat a small amount every day for a month (honestly, is anybody still enjoying it at that point?) dump the guilt, dump the temptation and dump the candy! It’s not like you’re going to recoup the money somehow by eating it, right? And I’m almost afraid to say it, but better it go to waste than to waist!
Sorry, that was a horrible pun.
But ultimately it’s true. There’s nothing to be gained keeping it around. Everybody enjoyed it. Move on.
Your body deserves the best possible fuel. Halloween candy ain’t it. I find it much easier to make my best possible choices if unhealthy options are off the table … and out of the house. Throw it out!