When you think of Halloween, what’s the first thing that comes to my mind? For most of us, that first thought might be candy, and let’s be honest here: we all love candy. Maybe you’re a chocolate person or a gummy candy person, or you like sour over sweet, but I think it’s safe to say that everyone has at least one candy they absolutely love.
However, what most people don’t realize, is that Halloween when you have severe food allergies… kinda sucks. And yes, there definitely are ways to make the best of it, but deadly peanut and tree nut allergies limit your pool of edible candy quite a bit.
As someone with two younger siblings who are both allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, I have firsthand experience trying to juggle the joys of Halloween with the realization that you can’t, and will never able to eat, the same things everyone else is.
In fact, when it comes to chocolate candy, your options are so limited, there’s only two: plain Hershey’s chocolate bars and York peppermint patties. But not the mini ones, because those are made in a facility with almonds, and almonds are a no-go with tree nut allergies. People love to rave about Twix, Snickers, Reese’s, Milky Ways, M&M’s, Three Musketeers, Kit Kats. . . the list truly goes on and on, but for those with peanut and tree nut allergies, they all mean the same thing: no!
Trick-or-treating just isn’t the same when bar after bar of candy is placed into your bag and you know it’s something you won’t be able to eat. But even though Halloween is certainly different when your candy options are limited, it’s not all bad! There are definitely ways to make the most of the situation, and that’s exactly what my mom does for my younger siblings each and every year.
So what does she do? She buys Hershey’s chocolate bars, the big, full-size candy bars, and keeps a box set aside. When my siblings come home from trick-or-treating, they dump their bags of candy out onto the counter and begin their sorting. Everything they can eat goes into one pile, and everything they can’t into another. Then, my mom makes trades with them. Four fun-size candy bars for one full-size Hershey’s chocolate bar, which is a perfectly fair deal. It guarantees them candy that they’ll be able to eat, and it makes a game out of candy trading too.
If you’re going to be passing out candy for trick-or-treaters this year or in the future, remember the kids with allergies. That extra little thought goes a long way in making someone’s Halloween a lot more fun and way safer.
Let us know in the comments below what your favorite kind of candy is!