A Halloween Candy Post, Inspired By Ashley's Mom

Update:  Wiki-How has just posted an article on "How to Give Healthy Halloween Treats."  It includes many of these lame items, plus much much more (cheese sticks, anyone?  miniature jigsaw puzzles?) 

I was recently at Costco buying an industrial size bag of the good Halloween candy, because we're trying to be the "cool people on the block with the good candy."  While I was buying my big bags of tiny Snickers and M & M's, I noticed a product that I think might win the "bad Halloween candy of all time" prize:  little individual bags of lowfat microwavable popcorn.  Who thought this was a good idea? 

Little kids:  a) can't use the microwave, b) don't eat lowfat food, and c) want candy they can eat right then.  Microwave popcorn is possibly the worst combination of the three of these things...like, maybe it could only be worse if they were selling individual Stouffer's Lean Cuisines for Halloween use, which I'm sure they only don't do because they'd go bad.

The microwave popcorn bags got me thinking about other bad Halloween giveaways.  I don't mean bad, like, razors or needles.  I mean bad, like, it's HALLOWEEN-- the one time you're actually allowed to eat candy until you get all hopped up, then get a stomachache.

Here's my list:

Top Ten Bad Halloween Items

1.  Microwave popcorn.  See above.

2.  Pennies.  Just, come on.  You're a little kid, your bag is already heavy enough, and then you get to the person's house who wants to give you a handful of pennies.  Not.  Cool.  Pennies are filthy, they're heavy, and they're worth....well, you get the picture.

3.  Loose candy corn or Circus Peanuts.  Rolling around in the bottom of the bag with the pennies?  Um, you're getting tuberculosis for Halloween if you eat those.

4.  Dental floss.  Even if you're the one dentist on your block, don't bother giving this out, as you're not going to stop the rising tide of tooth decay with your tiny piece of floss.  Halloween is the reason teeth fall out, yo.

5.  Individual sticks of carefree sugarless gum.  Again, you're not helping the tooth decay problem with your feeble sugarless gum.  You're just annoying the kids.  Plus, the individual sticks get all warm and bendy in the bag, and you can't eat them anyway.  Also, after all that candy, you can't even taste sugarless gum for about a week.

6.  Hand-dipped caramel apples.  A nice sentiment, but since, like, the beginning of time our moms have been telling us not to accept anything that's unwrapped.  So...what to do?  Put it in the bag for safekeeping?  It gets all the other candy all messy.  Eat it there?  Not safe, and then you're too full to eat the wonderful panoply of other candy that might come your way.  Besides, this contains actual fruit, which defies the "Halloween Candy must be bad for you" rule.  Nope.

7.  Carob Coated Anything.  Carob is fake chocolate, man.  Halloween is the one time it's ok to eat real chocolate.  Don't even get carob anywhere near me on October 31st.

8.  Boxes of raisins or sunflower seeds.  I don't even have the words.  Just...how dare you?

9.  Granola bars.  Again, I am speechless.  Small granola bars were probably in a bag right next to something delicious, like Peanut M & Ms, but you bought the Nature Valley Granola Bars instead.  Shame on you.

10.  Those crunchy sesame candy things from the health food store.  You know what I'm talking about.  Frankly, the kind of kid who would like this type of candy is not trick or treating, because their mom has them inside making up some home-schooling lessons, and besides, she objects to the pagan nature of Halloween. 

Anything I missed?

Comments

[Ashley Powell]

I am the Ashley of "Ashley's Mom" and it is sad but true, that my Mom can lay claim to items 6-10 on the bad halloween candy list... hey, at least she didn't put razors in the apples...

[John]

When I move from Brooklyn, to a neighborhood where kids trick or treat, every Halloween I will dispense unsalted organic sunflower seeds wrapped in a twist of Saran Wrap--no, waxed paper, tied with 3 inches of gimpy twine. I will be remembered forever by all the children in the neighorhood, and it will make all the bite-sized Snickers bars they get that much sweeter.

[effopleneby]

I'm new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.

[allie]

wow, sorry that some people are sick of looking at all the fatass little kids running about this world.

[dentist in southern california]

Me too, i hate candy's to prevent tooth decay,anyway thank you for the information. Keep up the good work.

by: florence