9/7/ 07 Halloween can be a really scary time for celiac children and their parents. Few items in their children’s goodie bag will have ingredients lists. There is no reason to assume that the smaller candy bars that are the bulk of most children’s trick-or-treat experience are made in the same way as their full sized counterparts. Parents can only guess what cross contamination has occurred. The three ways to fight this situation are:

• reinvent the trick-or-treat game and/or
• throw a party that is so great that kids will forgo trick-or-treating to attend and/or
• do both! (This is certainly the most effective option)

RE-INVENT TRICK-OR-TREATING

• One family created a family tradition that involved the Great Pumpkin arriving very late on Halloween night, taking the treat bags collected by all good celiac children, and leaving a very special gift pre-selected by the children. I think this would be a great approach for celiac children who are looking for a face-saving reason for avoiding both a sugar high and a gluten reaction.

• Another family turned trick-or-treating into a game in which various types of candy were assigned a different number of ponts. The winner received the grand prize. I like this approach, particularly since the kids lose points if they dip into their trick-or-treat bag ahead of time. This article was written by a family with diabetic children but the idea could certainly be adapted.

• This parent restricted trick-or-treating to their block and went out a few days before Halloween and gave each neighbor a small bag of safe treats and a picture of their child in costume (to avoid confusion).

These approaches have one common problem: what do we do with all the candy that is collected? These articles have a few (but only a few) suggestions.

HAVE A GREAT PARTY

First of all, be aware that my party suggestions are not all (or even primarily) gluten free. Most of them can be adapted easily and — let’s face it — appearance is more important than taste when you are preparing these party items. So go for it!

These links will lead you to hundreds of great ideas for Halloween. I did not list them in any special order. Enjoy!

• www.britta.com — lots of Halloween concoctions all brilliantly photographed / start here and see where the holiday spirits lead you
• “Calling all Gouls and Ghosts” — a complete party plan
• “EEK — It’s a Haunted House” — another complete party plan
• Amazing Moms.com — lots of great ideas
• 101 Halloween Ideas — more great ideas

OTHER HALLOWEEN IDEAS. In researching this article, I found some other ideas worth sharing:

• Recipezaar.com features 23 gluten free Halloween recipes.
• The manufacturer of Jelly Belly products specifies that all products are gluten free.
• The Tootsie Company states in the Frequently Asked Questions section of its website that “At this time, all of our confections are gluten free. We do not use wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt or any of their components and that includes our dusting on our conveyor belts. We do use corn and soy products in the manufacturing of our products.” I quote this in full because I found so many references to the contrary. The sentence I just quoted was written in 2006.

I have written many articles about Halloween. Click here for my “power page” summarizing everything I know about this holiday.