Better-For-You Halloween Candy Options

BY KATELYN CHEF

Ding, Dong. Ding. Flashback, you’re age eleven, dressed to impress as for your favorite kick-butt Power Ranger. The anticipation for Halloween has swallowed you like a snake devouring a juicy rat. The night dedicated to securing the best candy up the street and around the block is finally here. Ding, Dong. Ding. You press the doorbell awaiting something sweet wrapped in shiny paper on the other side.

The door opens, finally. A long skinny hand, slightly discolored with brown spots and maybe a wart (ewww!) reaches into her bowl. The eerie skinny hand pulls out an object, plop it goes into your candy bucket. You look down at your bucket, through your Ranger’s mask. Low & behold, that stupid skinny hand gave you an apple. Happy Halloween.

Present day. Hey. We’ve all been there as kids on Halloween anticipating candy and some folks think it’s funny to pass out apples (not the candied ones) or even worse, toothbrushes and floss. As we have morphed from chicken-nuggets loving Power Ranger kiddos to adults fueled by quinoa power bowls and plant-based smoothies, our pallets have changed.

True Halloween is infamous for its candy, (who can resist Reese Cups). However, there are smarter options to hand out as candy and even snack on yourself. Don’t worry. These Better-For-You Halloween Candy Options are way cooler than an apple.

1. Lesser Evil Popcorn: Remember as a kid, when the room moms at school would make popcorn balls for the classroom Halloween party? Flash forward to today, organic popcorn, like Lesser Evil’s Avocado-licious organic popcorn. They even come in Halloween 36-count cases!  

2. Smart Sweets: If you were the kid who always traded your fun size bars for gummies, these are for you. Smart Sweets come in an array of gummies that we loved as kids (Swedish Fish) but are made with only three grams of sugar.    

3. Dried Fruit: Dried fruit is way underrated. In fact, dried fruit is delicious as well as better for you than candy. Personally, dried mangos taste like a bit of the tropics on a given Tuesday.

4. OliPop: Remember when the rich houses would give you the little plastic barrel drinks either blue or orange? Well, you’re grown now and your taste buds are a little more sophisticated. OliPop is like soda, but way better (and cuter). Inside the darling design little cans, awaits a beverage that supports digestive health, contains 32% of your daily fiber, and no artificial sweeteners. Nada. You’ll have to try the Classic Root Beer.

5. Alter Eco Hazelnut Butter, Chocolate Bomb: We know nothing on Mother Nature’s green earth can replace the experience of biting into a left Twix bar, but this comes close. Vegetarian, ketogenic, organic, gluten free, certified fairly traded, certified gluten free, certified organic, and ethically sourced are all values inside Alter Eco’s Chocolate Bomb, Hazelnut Butter. Yeah okay, we’d trade our right Twix bar for one of these babies.

6. Unreal Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups: Adults, kids, and goblins alike will be saying Trick or Treat five times fast wanting to fill their buckets with these certified fairly traded dark chocolate peanut butter cups. 

7. Solely Fruit Jerky: Whether you’re someone who likes to eat super clean or are a Goop groupie, we got you. Love pineapple? Yeah? Good. You’ll love snacking on Solely ½ of an organic pineapple pressed jerky stick. Yep, it’s just ½ of a pineapple, that’s it.   

What did we tell you? Healthy-Halloween candy options are totally a thing. Here you were rolling your eyes at the start of this post, but now? Now, you’re drooling. Happy Halloween Witches!

Follow us on Instagram @alterreny.