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Are you one of those people that hands out toys or non-candy related treats for Halloween?
Or maybe you do more Trick or Treating than handing out candy at this stage of your life and you do a little happy dance every time someone drops a bag of pretzels into your child's bucket?!
Perhaps you've even adopted the popular tradition of trading in your kids' Halloween candy for toys after Trick or Treating?
I totally understand! Because I'm right there with you!
There's a famous phrase by a UC Davis nutrition professor that says, "Genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger." -Dr. Judith Stern¹
What this means by that is that, yes there is a genetic component to the onset of autoimmunity², but it's not just genes alone that trigger autoimmunity.
Our environment - the air we breathe, the water we drink, the products we use to clean our homes, the skincare products we use on our bodies, the food we eat, the life stressors we experience on a daily basis...
All contribute to the onset of autoimmunity.
I don't want my daughter to suffer like I have and I don't want your kids to suffer like you are.
So no, I'm not going to overload my daughter with immune suppressant sugar laden candy that can contribute to chronic low grade inflammation smack dab in the middle of cold and flu season.
And I certainly don't want it kicking around my kitchen all day because candy was one of my favorite things growing up, something I still crave to this day, but sugar is the number one trigger for my Rheumatoid Arthritis and considering it's in everything these days, it's something I'm VERY strict on avoiding anytime I have the ability to do so.
But I do think it's important to establish realistic healthy habits around food so kids don't feel restricted.
So what if I told you there's a way to indulge in Halloween Candy without completely derailing your healing process, compromising your immune system and causing an autoimmune flare-up?
Well, 4 ways in fact.
4 APPROACHES TO HANDLING HALLOWEEN CANDY AS AN AUTOIMMUNE WARRIOR (THAT I'VE EXPERIENCED AS A PARENT):
INDULGE + TOSS: Eat as much as you want on Halloween, then get rid of it.
SELF REGULATE: Choose how much you want to indulge in whenever you have a craving. (There is some mindset work you will have to do around this in order to prevent yourself from feeling stress while eating Halloween candy if you're still indoctrinated with diet culture morals that I discussed in depth inside the Flare Free Cooking Academy Mini Training this month and the replay of the training is inside the private online group if you missed that!)
MODERATE: Allow yourself a few pieces after dinner. (I give specific tips for how to do this without causing more inflammation due to blood sugar spikes in that mini training inside the private group as well so definitely check that out if you missed it.)
THE GREAT SWAP: Pick out your favorite 10 candies then swap out the rest for sugar free options.
I've tried every one of these methods and ultimately landed #4 suiting my family the best because it allows me to feel free in my own home because let's be real:
If there's Halloween 🍬 🍫 🍭 in the house, I'm going to eat it too.
And I don't need that in my life. This method also allows me to give my daughter some days where she can eat as much candy as she wants so she can grow up not feeling like candy was the "forbidden fruit" she never got to enjoy and thus, have a negative relationship with it later.
If you don't know what I mean by this, let me tell you a story of one of my current Personal Holistic Chef Clients:
He wasn't allowed to eat candy when he was a kid so it was always something he binged on at school and with friends whenever it was available and to this day, he has a few different big bowls of candy in the kitchen this time of year that he find impossible to NOT over indulge in every day because of the relationship he had with candy growing up.
Now inside my Flare Free Masterclass I teach you exactly what to do if you grew up with a similar mindset around trigger foods so definitely check that out if you need help with that!
I hope you have an amazing day and that some of these tips help you embrace your love of candy today and feel a bit more free on this Halloween!
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