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Green Halloween at Whole Foods unmasks healthier choices

Posted Oct 26, 2011 by Courtney Cairns Pastor

Updated Oct 26, 2011 at 02:19 PM

I think I have found a compromise for my conflicting feelings about Halloween.

I wrote recently about how fun the holiday is becoming for my son and how part of me wants to embrace it and the other part is kind of appalled at the excess.

Not to mention, do I really want to have all that candy around me? I don’t exactly need to be putting on pounds before we even get to Thanksgiving and Christmas – when I know I will have more than enough delicious things tempting me. I’d rather save my calorie budget for peppermint mochas and my butter-laden corn casserole and other goodies unique to that time of year than candy I could buy at any time.

But between the candy my son will collect trick-or-treating and the leftovers from what I pass out (I overbuy; I don’t want to run out!), we’re bound to have lots of candy in the house.

Green Halloween gives some good ideas for this issue.

Corey Colwell-Lipson and her mother, Lynn Colwell, started Green Halloween in Seattle in 2007 and expanded the movement nationally the following year. It came to Tampa in 2009.

You can check it out yourself from 3 to 6 p.m. Oct. 29 at Whole Foods, 1548 North Dale Mabry Highway. Local vendors set up around the store to showcase their products, all emphasizing making healthy choices for you and the environment. Whole Foods’ healthy eating specialist will have recipes and samples of foods to try, and kids will get to trick-or-treat around the store.

Costumes are welcome, and there will be a costume contest around 5 p.m. You don’t have to wear something tied to the green theme, but it may help. Last year’s winner was a litterbug – a bug costume covered in trash.

I know we’re not ready to cut out the candy, but I’m hoping going to the Green Halloween event will give me some ideas for alternatives. I’m thinking of offering a mix of the traditional chocolates with maybe pretzels or fruit strips, or possibly including “treasures” instead of treats, as the Green Halloween web site suggests. Little containers of Play-Doh, bubbles, stickers and temporary tattoos all are popular with kids.

I’d rather have leftover Play-Doh than candy that, let’s face, I am going to want to eat.

It’s a small start to a healthier holiday but sometimes small starts are more likely to stick.