HALLOWEEN!

YIKES! At my age the scariest thing about Halloween is how it sneaks up on me! It's just five days away!

So here's a slightly edited reprint of an article I wrote back in the early days of Lowcarbezine!.

Don't Look Now!

It's almost upon you! It's about to LEAP on you! Run! RUUUUUN!

It's Halloween!!!

Yep, in just five days, we celebrate the most primal, bone-deep
Sugar Festival known to Western Civilization. Is there any holiday that
is more totally, utterly associated with CANDY in the American mind?
There's Christmas candy, but there's so much to Christmas tradition --
decorations and songs and religious services and presents -- that candy
just blends in to the scene. We have red satin heart shaped boxes of
candy at Valentines Day, but if you got a silk nightie or a massage gift
certificate from your Valentine this year, you probably wouldn't be
thinking, "But where's the candy?!" But for many of us, Halloween is
really about the candy.

I know that when I was a kid, I trick-or-treated for hours on Halloween
night. I knew all the "good houses" -- where they gave out big,
expensive candy bars like Butterfinger and Caravelle and such, and I
knew which houses gave out stuff I didn't care near as much about --
Necco Wafers, Smartees, candy corn. I knew which neighbor fried fresh,
homemade donuts all night on Halloween night. (That I wasn't afraid to
eat something actually made by the giver says a lot about the innocence
of my childhood.) I planned my route for days in advance! And I doubt
kids have changed that much in the intervening thirty-some years.

All of which spells crisis for the low carb dieter. Especially if you
have kids, you are facing threat of being surrounded by candy in your
very own home! Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity! What you need is
some strategy, but fast, to get you through Halloween without sinking into a hypoglycemic coma. Whether you've got kids, or are the kind of adult who digs celebrating Halloween kids or no kids, you need to
emphasize the non-candy coolness of Halloween. What non-candy
coolness? How about:

* Costumes! Get caught up in helping your kids come up with totally
excellent costume, or even in coming up with one for yourself! (Best
Halloween costume I ever saw was a guy who rented a Santa suit, and
bought a tube of green greasepaint, and came to the party as The Grinch.
:-D )

* Spooking trick-or-treaters. It can be a lot of fun to set up your
house to be the scariest one on the block! We used to have styrofoam
tombstones on the front lawn, a ghost that slid down a wire toward the
front door, and a tape of haunted house sounds playing -- and we'd
answer the door in scary costumes. One friend would even hide behind
the tombstones on the front lawn, complete with zombie make up, and jump
out at the kids as they were coming back down the driveway, and chase
them down the block! We became a house with a Halloween "rep".

* Parties! If you haven't been invited to a Halloween party, consider
throwing one. It will let you control the refreshments. And
Halloween parties are a blast!

* By the way, holding a Halloween party for your kids is not only a good
way to avoid the risks of trick-or-treating, but also a great way to
limit how much candy your kids will have access to -- and how much candy
will be in your house come November 1. You can do the old fashioned
stuff, like costume judging, bobbing for apples, and jack-o-lantern
carving contests, or you can do something simpler, like renting a couple
of horror movie videos and having everyone come in costume to watch. If
you don't want to expose the kids to the really gory stuff, consider
older, but still creepy, movies -- I love old horror movies!
Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Creature
From the Black Lagoon, all of them!

* Look for fun local Halloween activities. Is there a haunted house
near you? A haunted hay ride? My mom and I were at a local historical
site a few years ago -- Connor Prairie, in Fishers, Indiana -- and they were staging The Headless Horseman. Very cool! And virtually candy-free. My middle-sized town also has a few haunted houses within striking distance, a haunted hay ride around a local park, and a ghost story telling festival.

* If you live in a neighborhood where you'll get trick-or-treaters,
consider giving away something other than candy. That way, you don't
have to sit there staring at the candy bowl all evening! What to give
away that won't get your house egged? Back when I lived in a
trick-or-treating neighborhood (I'm out in the country now, with nary a
trick-or-treater in sight), I gave away peanuts in the shell -- I had a
big bowl of them, and let kids take a double handful. I *never* got a
complaint! Nope, I had little goblins saying, "Oh, wow! Peanuts!"
Other possibilities are stickers, small cheap toys (look at stores that
cater to teachers for these), or even small change -- after all, a candy
bar would cost you at least a dime, right? You could give away apples,
but nobody eats Halloween apples anymore because of the urban legends of
razor blades in apples. Don't do what my dentist next door neighbor used to do -- give out toothbrushes -- or you will be cleaning up your
yard the next day!

* Consider laying in a modest supply of sugar free low carb candy for
the duration. A few sugar free chocolate bars or taffies can be a strong defense against the lure of Reese's and Snickers.

*Make sure that you -- and the kids! -- not only eat a good breakfast on
Halloween, but get a healthy, high protein, low carb supper as well, to
stabilize blood sugar. You'll find it easier to resist the junk, and
they'll be less likely to end up getting really zooey.

* Don't forget to toast the seeds that come out of your pumpkin!
Separate them from the stringy goop, spread them out in a flat baking
pan, and roast 'em at about 300 for ten to fifteen minutes. Salt them
if you like. You can rinse them before you roast them, but I think
they're tastier with the caramelized pumpkin juice on them. I adore
pumpkin seeds, and they're low carb and very nutritious.

* I would caution you against declaring Halloween an Indulgence Day, for
the simple reason that it's going to be very hard to stop raiding the kids' treat bags and the give-away candy supply once you start. It's a bad idea to let down your guard when the temptation is virtually unlimited. If, however, you choose to ignore this advice (What -- there's somebody in the world who doesn't hang on my every word, and do exactly as I say? Imagine that.) keep in mind that chocolate combined with nuts -- a Snickers, peanut M&Ms, a Reese's cup -- will have a lower blood sugar impact than the stuff that's pure sugar, like candy corn, mellocream pumpkins, and Sweetarts. I trust it goes without saying that you should choose the smallest piece you can!

* Is it too much to ask to suggest that you try to start slowing down
the flood of candy that your kids get for Halloween? For instance,
since the going door to door in costume is quite a lot of the fun, you
might do that, but suggest to the kids ahead of time that they only keep
and eat the kinds of candy they really like. I ate every scrap of candy I got for Halloween as a kid, even stuff I didn't much care for,
in just the way that an alcoholic who prefers whiskey will still drink
vodka if that's all there is. I'd recommend that you ration it out,
too, rather than letting the kids have control of it; they really don't
need unlimited candy for several days! Candy freezes well; try freezing
it and doling it out a piece at a time -- after a good meal of
protein!

* I'm aware that many conservative Christians try to keep their children
away from Halloween celebrations entirely, since Halloween is the
descendant of an ancient pagan holiday. (For the record, Halloween was
pagan New Year, and the time to say good bye to loved ones who had died
in the preceding year, which is why it's associated with ghosts. In
Mexico, there's an interesting cultural tradition of El Dia De Los
Muertos, the Day of the Dead, on November 1, when families go to the
graveyard and have a picnic on their ancestors graves. But I digress.)
Many churches now have alternative celebrations -- a dear friend of mine
helps plan a Biblical Costume Party for the kids of her church every
year. (I must admit to wickedly wondering how they'd react if someone
showed up as Salome...) If you're involved in something like this, how
about you make it really alternative, and try to keep the party from centering on candy, fruit punch, and cake? After all, if you're truly concerned about the young'uns spiritual health, you want them to
understand about the body being God's temple, right?

You've got five days to prepare yet, so dive on into the
planning, and make it a fun, spooky Halloween -- that you won't regret
come All Saint's Day! Otherwise, you'll be like the little ghost who
had a stutter -- you'll make a Boo-Boo. (Oh dear. Did I actually say
that?)

Have fun!