Celebrating Halloween involves lots of food and lots of excitement and lots of temptation. It can be a bit spooky for people living gluten free. Celiacs and parents of celiacs need to acquire four basic skills:

• identifying gluten free candy and other holiday goodies.
• reinventing trick-or-treating, since very few of the items in most goodie-sacks are acceptable for us.
• planning parties that will excite and impress gluten free children, particularly in cases where we have had to  change the normal trick-or-treat routine.
• planning parties suitable for adults who live gluten free.

I’ve written about Halloween several time. This page sums everything up and also includes some new material.

+++ IDENTIFYING GLUTEN FREE CANDY AND OTHER HOLIDAY GOODIES +++

Several lists of gluten candy exist. All lists bear (or should contain) the caveat that situations change quickly. I’m not sure how accomplish this on Halloween day. We need to plan ahead by consulting these lists published by AboutCeliacDisease.com and/or DivineCaroline.com.

+++ RE-INVENTING TRICK-OR-TREAT +++

• One family created a tradition that involved the Great Pumpkin arriving very late on Haloween night, taking the treat bags collected by all good celiac children, and leaving a special gift pre-selected by the children. I think this is a great approach for children who are looking for a face saving reason to avoid both a sugar high and a gluten reaction. I’m sorry that the article where I read this no longer seems to be on-line.

• Another family turned trick-or-treating into a math game in which various types of candy were assigned a different number of points. The winner received the grand prize. I like this approach, particularly because the kids obviously lost points if they dips into their bags early. This article was written by a family with diabetic children, but the idea could be easily adapted.

• Check out this article from e-How.com. We may disagree with some of his specific strategies, but it is certainly true that the important thing about holidays is the time adults spend with children, not the quality or quantity of sweets that we feed them.

+ + + GLUTEN FREE HALLOWEEN PARTIES FOR CHILDREN+++

It’s relatively easy to find and prepare Halloween food that children will love. In most cases, you are looking for a visual effect not a gourmet taste, so substitutions are relatively easy. Browse through this collection from About Gluten Free Cooking, this one from Britta.com, or use these ideas from three videos demonstrating cooking gluten free Halloween foods for children.

If you prefer a full set of Halloween party plans for children, consider “Calling All Ghouls and Ghosts” and.or “Eeek! It’s a Haunted Open House” both posted by the same company. Keep in mind that these parties are not totally gluten free, but substitutions should be obvious.

+++ GLUTEN FRIENDLY HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS FOR ADULTS +++

Most of what I have written applies to people of all ages. Since adults would probably prefer different foods, I suggest these 27 recipes designated “gluten free” and “halloween” by RecipeZaar.com.