Your Halloween Guide to Real Food Tricks & Treats

Okay, this post is not so much about the tricks, but definitely the treats. I did want to trick my little guy (he’s 4) into handing over his nasty, toxic candy after he comes back from trick or treating, but he was all for it. Score! We made a deal: He would hand over his crap candy (and let’s face it, people, it’s crap), and I would, in return, hand him over real food treats or alternatives from New Seasons/Whole Foods. Works for me! Ever heard of the ‘Switch Witch?’ Check it out…

Brilliant idea! I won’t be the mom that says absolutely no treats on Halloween, but I’m not really into overloading my kiddo on sugar and chemicals either, so…the line that works for me (I think. This is our first year.) is making him real food treats and finding a couple of store-bought, organic alternatives…and possibly a toy like the Switch Witch. I don’t bake or make treats a lot so this gives me a great excuse to do something fun and special for my little guy, all the while keeping HFCS, hydrogenated oils, preservatives and ADHD triggering food dyes out of the equation.

Read some of the popular Halloween candy ingredients lists here. No, thanks.

One more thing. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to come across elitist. I grew up on this stuff. And McDonalds and Mac & Cheeese and, and…and at 19 I got a grapefruit sized cancer tumor in my chest cavity. Personally, I can’t go around saying, “Well, I ate this stuff and I turned out fine,” like I hear a lot of people saying who are against organic and what not. It’s one thing to have a little junk here and there, but when you start adding up everything chemical and artificial and hydrogenated, which is in most of our food these days, it is a toxic load and a lot of us, you guessed it, are sick. And I don’t know 100% how I got my cancer, but I can say that lessening our cancer-causing, toxic load long-term is never a bad idea. Especially, for little bodies. End of rant.

Moving on to the treats. Check out this list of fun!

Your Halloween Guide to Real Food Treats

Katie blogs over at Girl Meets Nourishment and has got some real food candy bars goin’ on! Try her Real Food Coconut Almond Candy Bars.

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Melissa over at My Whole Food Life created these Clean Eating Peanut Butter Cups. Three letters. O.m.g. I made them yesterday and they are incredible!

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(These are the ones I made yesterday. So good. I added a little fleur de sel bc I’m a sucker for dark chocolate, peanut butter and yes, sea salt! ;). My friend gave me local, flaky salt his friends make from the coast of Oregon (score!), but you can get flaky sea salt here.)

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Sarah from Real Food Outlaws created these cute Pumpkin Caramel Chocolates.

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Milk & mint cookies anyone? Stephanie over at Good Girl Gone Green whips up Vegan, Paleo, Gluten and Nut-free Chocolate Mint Cookies!

And, Clean Eats in the Zoo came up with Grain-free Thin Mint Copycats. Both look too good not to make!

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Besides the crack involved (haha! what?), Thin Mints contain not-so-good ingredients.

Check these bad boys…er eyes out! These are awesome and so creative! These Spooktacular Gummy Eyeballs are from Oh, The Things We’ll Make.

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Want a real chocolate bar that doesn’t come from child labor or contain GMOs? Try GAPS and Paleo friendly Homemade Chocolate from Real Food Forager.

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Gluten-Free Oreos. Is there anything more to say? Oreos are full of chemicals and GMOs (unfortunately, ’cause who didn’t love them growing up?). BUT, there’s a better  waay better version and Homemade Dutch Apple nails it.

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Real food gummy worms! Great for Halloween or making ‘Dirt’ year round. Thanks Rethink Simple for coming up with this great Homemade Gummy Worm recipe, sure to make kid’s smile or at least say ‘gross!’ and then eat them up with delight. 😉

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Chocolate-Covered Katie is queen bee when it comes to healthy treat making. She makes Healthy Butterfingers! completely free of high-fructose corn syrup and the rest of the artificial list.

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Yeay for whole food treats without crap ingredients! (Can I say crap on a blog?). You know what I mean. 😉 Have fun making these yummy treats for Halloween and all year long when you want to have a sweet treat made with real-food ingredients. Cheers and thank you whole food bloggers out there for making the world of food a better place one recipe at a time!

Halloween Treat Shop

Here are a few things that are fun for Halloween. Get Prime and get free, 2-day on shipping on tons of products + access to movies and such.

See ingredients to use for whole food treat making —> here.

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To learn more about ingredient labels, check out My Whole Food Life’s Processed Foods Exposed posts. They explain a lot and why we should care.

There are a ton of nasty ingredients in chocolate bars, but the issue goes further. Half a million African children are enslaved to make 40% of the world’s chocolate, mainly all mainstream chocolate in the U.S. Yeah, it sucks stinks. Read more –> Slave Chocolate: Why I Choose Fair Trade