Halloween is just a few days away. Most children are excitedly looking forward to going trick-or-treating and getting lots of candy. If your child has food allergies, some of that candy can be dangerous. Here are some resources to help parents figure out if there is an allergen in the candy that your child brought home.
Let me start this blog with a bit of a “disclaimer”. Parents need to use their best judgement about whether or not a particular Halloween candy is safe for their child to eat. Always read the ingredients that are on the package. Use the resources in this blog to sort out the candy that contains something that your child is allergic to. Double check everything. When it doubt, throw it out.
Celiac.com has a very detailed list of Gluten-Free Halloween Candy. They have listed the gluten free Halloween candy in alphabetical order, to help parents sort through the list for the specific information that they are seeking. An even more detailed list can be found at Celiac Family. This list has been updated for 2012.
At the bottom of this list from Celiac.com is another one that notes Halloween candies that have been known to contain wheat or gluten. Parents might want to scan over that list first, and remove those types of candies from their children’s trick-or-treat buckets.
The Bay Area Allergy Advisory Board has a list of Halloween candy that is peanut and tree nut free. The list has been updated for 2012. They developed this list for use in elementary schools.
Go Dairy Free has a blog post that shows photos of several different types of Halloween candies that are dairy free. Some of them are also nut free and gluten free, (but you need to check carefully to see which those are). The Halloween candy featured in the blog look awesome, and fit the theme of Halloween.
You probably won’t find any of these in your child’s haul of candy from trick-or-treating, thought. Parents might want to purchase some of the allergy free Halloween candy and trade it for the candy that their child cannot eat.
The GFCF Diet website has a long list of categories of candy that are gluten free, casein free, or both. This list might be a good resource for parents of kids who are on a specialized diet that is entirely gluten free/casein free.
Image by Kim Woodbridge on Flickr