Peanut Free Treats

Hi Elle,

My oldest daughter is allergic to tree nuts and peanuts. We order chocolate treats from a FANTASTIC company out of Vermont. It is all NUT FREE completely... even the processing. The company was started by a mom whose son is allergic. We go trick-or-treating as usual then switch out all the non-safe candy when we get home. By the way, this is the best chocolate I have ever tasted and they have come out with other treats as well like candy corn and "skippers", which are just like M&M's! The website is vermontnutfree.com. Order now!!! You won't be disappointed :) My daughter gets a box of "special" chocolate for Christmas every year!

Best Wishes,
C.

Enjoy life makes chocolate chips that are manufactured in a nut free facility. They also have chocolate snack bars (all their products are made in a nut, dairy, soy, wheat, etc. environment for folks with food allergies). You can find their products at Sprouts, Whole Foods and the specialty stores (FM Specialty foods in Flower Mound and Delicious-n-Fit in Plano). I bought candy molds in halloween shapes and melt down the chocolate chips to make my kids candies since they cannot have dairy or wheat. Also, what I do for halloween is have on hand enough safe treats for them at home and we trade for the candy they get that they cannot have.

*If* you want to try and lessen the number of sweets he eats, you could swap the candy out with small toys and such (Oriental Trading company is a good cheap source). But this is only once a year :)

Elle, Halloween is always tough for kids who suffer from food allergies. My 5yo. daughter is severely allergic to peanuts, egg, all dairy, oat....the list goes on. Needless to say, she can't have hardly any candy. Since she knows we have to go through all of the candy anyway at home after trick o treating (for safety purposes), so we usually purchase items that she can have and place them in her bag while she is washing her hands after we get back. We get things like fruit snacks, some cookies she can have, skittles etc... She really does not have candy very much since almost all candies are "produced in a factory that contains peanuts etc..." Now that she is 5yo, she gets a little upset - for instance, lastnight at her softball game, one of the mom's passed out candy to everyone, when I read the back, it said the usual which meant she could not have it. She asks the normal... "why am I the only one who can't have it" or "why am I the one who is always allergic to things" - but she knows it is for her safety and health. Anyway, just my thoughts - do some special things for him, get special treats he really likes even if they are not candy. Good luck.

Of course let him go out and trick or treat, but as usual, before being able to eat any of it, you lay it all out and sift through it and discard any questionable candies. For him, I would recommend switching out his treats. You know what he can eat, start making a collection of stuff you can switch his stuff out for.
Another idea is something a friend of mine does. She calls it the "switch witch". This "witch" comes and switches out the whole booty for a toy, sort of like the tooth fairy. This is a pretty sneaky way to get any of your kids to not eat that candy! I might try it this year. Best of luck!