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Halloween is a fun and exciting time for young children. There’s not much else they love more than dressing up and going out trick-or-treating on Halloween night. However, for many parents and adults out there, it can be a very stressful undertaking. If their child has food allergies then many of the most popular and common sweet treats that get handed out on Halloween are off limits to them.
Candy that may potentially contain harmful, or in some cases even fatal, ingredients are what parents and children with food allergies have to be on the look out for and avoid. For people who are intolerant or allergic to milk, that means no chocolate. In addition, many types of candy contains eggs, wheat, soy, tree nuts, and other ingredients, which can trigger a person’s allergies or medical condition. Peanuts and tree nuts in particular are what many children are extremely allergic to.
While parent’s should always inspect the candy their kids collect on Halloween for tampering, those with children who have food allergies must be extra vigilant to ensure nothing potentially harmful gets past them. This means giving up on a lot of candy for those kids with allergies and nothing kills the Halloween spirit faster than missing out on tempting tasty treats.
In fact, it’s best to not even risk exposing a child with food allergies to the candy that’s off limits to them in the first place. That was one of the main goals that the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) organization had in mind when they fist launched the Teal Pumpkin Project just a couple of years ago in 2014. Another primary aim they had was to increase public awareness of common food allergies so as to make sure that children with those allergies are also included in the Halloween celebrations, especially trick or treating!
In order to do that, they started the Teal Pumpkin Project which encourages people handing out candy on Halloween to also offer non-food items to children. It can be anything that a small child would enjoy and inexpensive items like stickers, packets of crayons or Play-Doh, erasers, glow sticks, small toys, novelty items, and more work perfectly.
Once you have these types of alternative items to give out, then you need to be able to alert parents and children of that fact. That’s where the whole teal pumpkin aspect comes into play! Place a teal painted pumpkin outside on your steps, porch, or wherever, to instantly show and tell parents that you can provide their children with safe, non-food goodies.
Taking part in the teal pumpkin movement will help make all those children feel like they aren’t missing out on anything, plus it eases their worried parent’s minds! One important thing to note is that you should keep the non-food items in their own separate bowl away from the candy, this will lessen the potential for cross contamination. Also, make sure to place your teal pumpkin in a highly visible spot so that everyone can see it and not miss out. Check out the accompanying video for more information on the Teal Pumpkin Project and visit the FARE groups website or Facebook page.
Please spread the word and help to raise awareness about the Teal Pumpkin Project by sharing this information with your friends, family, and loved ones. Come this Halloween the more teal pumpkins, the better!
Tricks for making your own teal pumpkin:
If you choose to paint a regular pumpkin, start by painting it white first and then do a few coats of teal. This helps to ensure that the teal color really shows up.
Another option is to purchase a fake pumpkin at a craft store. They usually have white unadorned pumpkins available to decorate so painting one teal is easy and you can use it year after year.
If you only have white paint on hand you can make teal by mixing it with a few drops of blue and green food coloring. Experiment to adjust the amounts until you achieve a bright teal color.
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