The Scariest Thing about Halloween Candy

+ recipe for "spider web" black bean dip

Happy Halloween! I hope you have some fun plans for tonight. I’ll be home, with a glass of wine in hand, waiting for the adorable trick-or-treaters to ring my doorbell. What will I, a registered dietitian nutritionist, be giving out to the little goblins? Candy! Regular, “bad-for-you,” sugary, mass-market candy. I’ll be digging into some myself too. (I just love those mini Reese’s.) You see, the scariest thing about Halloween candy isn’t the sugar, or the artificial ingredients, or the escalating cost of it (The New York Times reported the price of candy is up 20% from 2021!). The scariest thing about Halloween candy is the downward spiral of guilt that many of us get sucked into when we eat it.

You have probably experienced it yourself or know someone who has: you swear you are going to avoid candy this Halloween and stick with “clean” eating. After a while you cave in and hastily gobble down a piece. Consequently, you feel like you failed, and have gone “dirty,” so you beat yourself up for your lack of self-control and swear you will go back to zero sugar starting tomorrow. Since you’ve declared this is your last hurrah with sweets, you go all out, bingeing until you feel ill, not actually enjoying a single bite of it. The whole episode might eventually trigger even more self-destructive binge behavior. This is the frightening diet-mentality vortex. Here are some ways to break free of it and enjoy this holiday, candy and all:

Keep things in perspective

Sure, added sugar is unhealthy in most circumstances, and the majority of us would be better off if we cut back. But rather than get caught up in a bad food/good food, micro-management mindset, try to step back for a broader perspective. The way we eat on a regular basis is what defines our overall diet quality. A bunch of cheap candy one day out of the year will not ruin or negate an overall healthy way of eating.

It’s also OK to include some sweets everyday if you want to. If you go by the American Heart Association’s recommended daily limit of 6 teaspoons (24 g) added sugar for women and 9 teaspoons (36g)  for men, you could fit in two or three of those fun-sized candies each day and still have an overall healthy diet. This is why I categorize food as Usually-Sometimes-Rarely. To me, there is no Never food. Knowing candy isn’t taboo makes it less loaded with meaning, taking the power away from it, and making it less likely to lead to a binge. So skip the guilt and extremist all-or-nothing thinking and have some candy if you want it. Then move on.