Halloween for a Little Vegan Boy

My son is 2 years old and for the first time in his life he is able to understand that Halloween provides candy. While this may be exciting for him, it can be a bit anxiety inducing for my wife and me.

Becoming vegan has been one of the best decisions I've ever made, despite the obvious difficulties around the holidays. For the last 8 years I've endured the judgmental looks of family members as I carve into the Tofurky or drop a few cubes of veggie bouillon into a boiling pot. Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to be the worst but, surprisingly, Halloween is coming in a close third this year.

We don't hand out the normal candy and chocolate concoctions that many people do. Last year we left a bowl on our front porch with Annie's vegan fruit snacks and YummyEarth organic lollipops. I think we also dropped in some little Halloween erasers. But this year we have the tension of finding a way to remove the non-vegan items from my son's bag without upsetting him. When something is supposed to be easy we say it's "like taking candy from a baby." Have you ever tried to take something away from a two year old? Easy isn't the word I would use for it. Actually, "screamy" is the word I would use. So we may have a bit of a challenge on our hands this time.

When you think of candy, you don't often consider what might be in it. I know I never did before I began reading labels. Candy is inherently "not good" for us due to the sugar content and complete lack of other nutritional value and, of course, most of the Halloween chocolate has milk in it. We also have to keep an eye out for gelatin, which even candy corn has in it for some reason.

Our plan is to get a few different vegan options to offer in trade from his non-vegan stash. We are going to make it a game and get him to offer his to us freely. I'm hoping he is open to this, otherwise we have to move on to Plan B, which will involve getting him to bed as soon as we are done trick-or-treating and swapping his chocolates out during the night!