While I abhor all the sugar, chemicals and corn that makes our US factory food (feed) so good at maximizing profit, instead of maximizing health and pleasure, I caution parents from exerting too much control over children’s eating.

My sister-and-law strictly controls her daughters’ intake of sweets and soda, and as they grow up, they are obsessed with it.

It is important that children have the opportunity to regulate their own access and intake of sweets, and pleasure generally.

I believe Almond Joys were made in my hometown, Naugatuck, Connecticut, when I was growing up in the 1950s. It was one of many businesses I believe has gone elsewhere.
We did not eat any of the candies made locally. I think the reason was they were “bars,” and Halloween candy we got was a lollipop, candy corn, or chocolate kisses. We got to visit all the houses we never otherwise went to, and to meet all the people in the neighborhood we otherwise never met. And they would prepare elegant little collections of candies, tied in bright Halloween napkins. Of course our parents threw out all the candy before the next morning.

Samira just said that candy manufacturers are MOST interested in not adding poison to their product.

Weren’t there studies made that color dyes cause ADHD or make it worse?

Try to find the hard candy that doesn’t have any color dies!

Sorry, its
“Try to find the hard candy that doesn’t have any color dyes!”

What an abdication of intellectual commitment to the great charm of complete triviality: this is not about the challenges facing social structure, the future of technology, the end of sweatshop labor, war, etc…this is superfluity unadulterated. She’s not even a nutritionist or a doctor – aren’t there more interesting and important topics in cultural studies than candy consumption?! She doesn’t even tackle the candy industry as an example of how markets don’t always help people serve their own best interests. Tame, trivial, irresponsible waste of time and attention. The only useful approach to the subject was given by the call-in Pediatrician discussing diabetes and obesity related health problems.

Hi Tom…. I feel two interesting points have not been brought up so far. One is the fact that in the 60′s, there was alot of home made stuff, until razor blades and needles were inserted into stuff. Thus a move to only give and accept candy that was pre-packed candy. I also taught for 2 years in a school for ADH kids in California. Candy and sugar were no-no’s. But on the day after Halloween, when the parents let the kids go, I learned for the first time that kids “bouncing off the walls” is a very realistic term. My job in school that day was just to keep the kids from hurting themselves. It was MOST clear. I would love to hear your guest’s comments. Thanks for a great show!!

Love this quote – “A hundred years ago, someone eating candy wasn’t also eating candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner”

It’s so true. Most of my clients are addicted to sugar, and every time I give a workshop about sugar addiction it fills up. Candy may not be the problem, per se. The problem is with sugar lurking in almost every bite we take. Cereals. Ketchup. Juice drinks. Even pasta sauce. It’s everywhere! It weakens the body and is extremely addictive.

Sugar also lowers our immunity. So on one hand we give our children flu shots, and then we send them out to go collect candy at the exact time of year they are vulnerable to major sickness.

As the parent of a child with a food allergy (peanut), I approach Halloween with a bit of dread. I choose non-candy items to hand out to trick-or-treaters – mini cans of play-doh are generally well-received.

I agree we are training our tastebuds to look for sweetness — in vitamin pills, in soymilk, in canned peas. Being allergic to it, I am keenly aware.
What the culture has to relearn is to tune the tastebuds to OTHER flavors, which are probably more costly to put in foods, to keep it fresh. Citric acid (another thing I’m allergic to) seems to go hand-in-glove with the sweeteners. And this will create enough mouth-feel that NOTHING ELSE IS NEEDED.
A mouth that learns to value high-vitamin oatmeal over the fluff kind — that is what we need to be trained in.

A few more things I want to add:
Jim, are you familiar with something called the Feingold diet? This is one which focuses a great deal on food additives and how it affects behavior in kids.

To Kessler’s comment about sugar and fat cravings: good fats (ie, not vegetable oils and their ilk) are *needed* for nutrition, and it’s also much more difficult to overeat fats because they fill you up so well. Sugars do not do that.

Sugar doesn’t cause diabetes!!!!
Excess calories makes you fat and obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Uncontrolled diabetes causes heart disease, amputation, blindness, and etc. Controlled diabetes, through exercise, diet, and insulin management can overwhelmingly prevent complications of diabetes.

Thank you,
Jessica
diabetes- 35 years

I bought organic popcorn to hand out at Halloween, three medium bags. I ate them all within 24 hours.
I will have to keep my lights off or give out canned kidney beans. Maybe I’ll get a really scary hat and scare everyone away. Actually, I’m not going out again till after. So it’s going to be kidney beans.

I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Kessler. I grew up with tons of candy in the house and find myself as a 35 year-old sneaking into the kitchen for M&Ms so that my kids won’t see me! I limit their candy intake so that they won’t have to battle the sense that they “need” candy to make it through a hard day the way I do. Instead, we do a lot of talking about what healthy food is and try to bake our treats together, not get them at the convenience store.

Three weeks ago I gave up ice cream, candy, cookies, cheese, yogurt and all dairy products. I’ve lost 10 lbs and feel great. (I’m now at my “ideal” weight, according to the charts.) I’ve replaced these items with vegetables, coconut milk, yogurt made from coconut milk, and a pro-biotic drink called Good Belly. Whether it’s the reduction in sugar or fat that is making the difference, I don’t care. The results are clear.

We have ruined Halloween.
Kids eat candy, apparently, every day of the year.

I agree with David, today I had made the choice not to eat a Dunkin Donuts Maple Sausage breakfast sandwich which has almost 700 calories. I chose another alternative with has around 300 calories.

We need to make choices that are healthy and taste good.

Sorry, I missed the first half hour of this show, so perhaps this was said, but I MUST say this (I have posted about this before):

I was POISONED BY AN ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER (the one which begins with the letter “A” — can I mention the brand name on line?) for 2 1/2 years!

It can METABOLIZE INTO a NEUROTOXIN and can give people small seizures.

Everyday, I would get PAINFUL DIZZY SPELLS which MAY have been those seizures! These spells were completely incapacitating, and I trek thru other pain and discomfort on a daily and years-long basis!

Everyday, I lost 4-6 hours of my life, incapacitated with this dizziness. Sometimes, I lost that amount of time TWICE a day, if I had a snack later of the same cereal which contained this product (unknown to me).

Because I have metastatic cancer, all my doctors thought this was from the disease OR from side effects from medications, EVEN THO I was on 3 entirely DIFFERENT cancer meds during this time! Once I found out that the Sweetener was the culprit, and removed the product that contained it from my diet, it took SIX DAYS to get it out of my system, but since then, I’ve been fine! THAT’s how I know that the artificial sweetener caused the problems!

Apparently, this artificial sweetener is made from amino acids, but in some people, those amino acids break down in neurotoxic ways once digested. Many people for whom this is true have the condition called PKU. But, I don’t! People 28 and younger (at least) got tested for PKU at birth, but I’m MUCH older than that, and I’ve never been tested for it. Could I be a PKU Carrier, which could leave my daughter free of PKU, but WAS this product tested on Carriers of PKU, not just on the people WITH PKU DISEASE?? WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON THAT THE F.D.A. DID NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT BEFORE APPROVING OF THIS PRODUCT??

I LOST 2 1/2 years of my life to this stupid product (which was in a product I ate each day due to doctor’s orders), but because I read ALL labels that come into my house, I didn’t suspect this item. The side effects are actually CUMULATIVE. Because I found that it took SIX DAYS TO GET THE SWEETENER OUT OF MY SYSTEM, it probably took the same number of days for it to start poisoning me — hence, I did not make the connection between this product and the TORMENT WITHIN MY SKULL!!

HERE”S THE THING: they are putting this product into MORE AND MORE FOOD PRODUCTS ALL THE TIME. Gum, cereals, everything! Even small things! Remember: I think the side effects are cumulative!

Besides PAINFUL DIZZINESS, I felt like I had A.D.H.D. I could NOT organize anything, AND I used to earn my money organizing offices; I used to be the original multi-tasker! I SUSPECT that a lot of KIDS are being diagnosed with A.D.H.D., when in fact THEY have the same allergy to The “A” Word that I have.

I am trying to make this posting into a major public health warning!

I am already going to have a shortened life due to metastatic breast cancer, so I did NOT need to LOSE 2 1/2 years of my life thanks to the F.D.A.! There IS a warning about PKU on many products that contain this sweetener; once again, I do NOT have PKU Disease!!!

On top of all that, this product even contributes to the problem we are talking about here — it just makes even more things SWEET, so that we WANT SWEET! We have Type 2 diabetes in our family and Type 1 (and early death therefrom), so I agree: American business takes too many products and turns them into “a Stimulation”!

When you see “Flavor Boost” — it often means that the product has BOTH SUGAR, or corn syrup, AND THE ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER I AM NOT NAMING BY NAME, BUT WHICH BEGINS WITH THE LETTER “A”.

Thanks, and please stay healthy!

Our school district recently eliminated all “celebratory” snacks and all “reward” treats. No birthday cupcakes, no apple cider and popcorn for Halloween, no gum, no corn bread, nothing!

This change was said to fight childhood obesity and to model the nutritional lessons they teach.

But they continue to sell snacks at school lunch, such as M&M cookies, chips, ice cream. They also sell chocolate milk with HF Corn Syrup at lunch. Most hot school lunches include a dessert also. So a child can get candy to drink, eat and another treat at lunch everyday.

I agree with your guests. The problem with our diets is not about the choices we make occasionally, but the choices we make every day.

Eliminating occasional treats but institutionalizing daily treats in our school lunches does not model healthy eating.

Ann, here is Kevin Trudeau on aspartame (page 201): “This is also an excitotoxin. It makes you fat, it makes you hungry, it makes you depressed, and it leads to all types of medical conditions, including PMS and migraines. If you’re not convinced, read the book ‘Aspartame: Is it safe?’”
He takes on Splenda too, but not stevia, which is a sweetener that I can tolerate. I think his book predates stevia (which is a leaf, I believe, but so was sugar a plant before being processed) — a noncaloric leaf.
Trudeau’s book is much less easy to use (or to challenge, by the way) for lack of an index. On the plus side, it is replete with references to websites and other books.
It goes to the far side (Gary Trudeau?? related??) in many cases. For instance, he recommends wearing white, at least SOME white. And he says he knows of something to counteract the negative ions (or is it positive ions?) from exposure to laptops and other electromagnetic things. He includes a reference to his website, rather than selling it right out of his book. Short of moving to a teepee in the middle of Alaska, we live counter to most of his advice, and count the times your life has been saved by antibiotics before you throw the baby out with the bath oil. But I note that Emily Dickinson toward the end of her life (when she had Bright’s disease) went to all-white. So maybe she had figured out the same thing.

An earlier post mentioned the popular urban legend that razor blades and needles were insterted into apples and this is why healthier treats are no longer given out at Halloween. And indeed, it’s true that people became afraid of this possibility; it was widely cited in school when I was a kid in the early 80s. However, the legend itself is perhaps untrue – has there ever been a single documented case of razors being inserted into apples? This bears further research. One seldom knows how these rumors get started.

Ellen Dibble (12:17 PM) states (effectively quoting) “…And he says he knows of something to counteract the negative ions (or is it positive ions?) from exposure to laptops and other electromagnetic things.”

This is pathetic! Ellen was smart to suspect the far-out stuff. That some people would believe such stuff helps prove that most of our populace is woefully ignorant* regarding science.
*I originally typed “stupid as rocks”…

As well, Ann, a bit earlier, didn’t need to worry about a trade name; Wikipedia has an article on Aspartame, including its chemistry. (Wikipedia is excellent regarding chemistry, imho.)

Speaking of healthy treats, does anyone have any suggestions on what to give out for Halloween as an alternative to candy?
I was thinking apples, until I was reading about the razor blades and needles. But, if you inspect the candy, like all good parents should, wouldn’t you be able to inspect the apple/orange too? You can see the fruit’s skin punctured or broken. Plus, I cut all the fruit anyways, so …

I also saw the little cups of play-doh that my friend suggested to give out and mentioned here too.

Anything else? Much appreciated. Thank you

not to mention how much cheaper candy and sweets are than, say, fruits – especially if they’re organic!
a snickers bar is even cheaper than a bagel and cream cheese!

@PF: Most interesting message; thank you! I really like the idea of putting an address label on your home-prepared goodies.

After reading several times about how excess candy is apparently often discarded, I’m in a mild stew about what to offer.

It’s not fair, when a youngster says, “Trick or treat?” (It is a question), to reply “Trick!”. Seems that the original intent of the question has been lost, although that’s not an unhappy loss, I’d suggest. Wonder how many kids know the original meaning and implications…

*** I find it that American candy and deserts are way sweeter than any sweets in other countries. ***

So true, I can’t stand sweets here! If you watch how much sugar they put in there while making all the sweets, they are horrible!

OnPoint is limiting and monitoring all comments now, it results my duplicate comments. Sorry!

nice!