While there are many blog posts out lately about the awfulness of Halloween candy, personally, we love it!  We don’t hide it or ration it.  We just eat it.  It’s a candy fest around our house lately.

As we eat our way into a sugar coma, here are some of the clever and creative candies we have come across.

Marshmallows/Gummies

My youngest daughter loves marshmallows at the moment.  When we were picking out our Halloween candy, she asked for marshmallows and I told her that I wasn’t sure there were any marshmallow candies for Halloween.  Wrong!  Just then we came across a sack of Kraft “Boo-Mallows” in moon, pumpkin and ghost shapes.  Halloween was saved!

At home, unpacking the groceries, I noticed someone tossed in some clever peach marshmallows filled with peach jelly.  They were delicious too!

I also liked this gummy candy twist on traditional candy corns.  The flavor wasn’t quite as good as the real thing but the texture was good.

While trick or treating, my daughter got a Peep!  At first I thought someone might be recycling Easter treats but when my daughter showed me the package, sure enough, there are now Peeps for Halloween!  “Mom, it has orange goo inside!” she exclaimed excitedly.

Chocolates

During our Halloween adventures, our generous neighbors provided an assortment of Halloween goodies.  The most clever chocolate transformation for Halloween was the Snickers pumpkin.  A full-size Snickers bar was re-molded into two pumpkin shaped chocolates.  Cute!  And tastes the same as the original.

Most Creative

My daughter started playing with one of the candies from her Halloween bucket and I stopped to stare.  “What is that?”  It looked like a necklace.  “Oh, it’s a candy.” she said.  I looked at the wrapper and it is something called “Nerds Rope.”  Colorful, crunchy nerds candy coat a sticky, red rope that tastes kind of like a gooey fruit snack.  It’s not bad tasting and certainly original.

Reducing Candy Consumption

Some people get really irritated having candy in their house because they don’t want to be tempted to eat it before Halloween.  One trick we found to keep ourselves from eating the candy we bought for trick or treaters was to bag it into little gift bags.  This way, we knew how many servings we had for trick or treaters, our kids knew not to unwrap gifts for other people and it was a slight disincentive to eating the leftovers since you had to take the extra effort to unwrap the bag to get the candies out.

In some ways candy eating has been helpful for our eating habits.  My oldest child is a very picky eater and is reluctant to try new foods.  Candy was a great vehicle for tasting new foods.  She learned to identify tastes and textures she liked and try new combinations.  We do hope though that some day this will morph into experimenting with vegetables!

Did you spot any clever Halloween candies this year?  Please share in the comments.