Emma-the Princess with Attitude!
Trick or treating time is here and it poses a difficult decision for parents. How much nasty sugary candy do we actually allow them to eat? I remember back in my childhood days of trick or treating that it was not uncommon to be invited into a neighbor’s house for popcorn and apple cider. These days we scan for razors, fear arsenic laden homemade treats, and dread “that house” that passes out the healthy stuff. Heck, I even think I went haunting without my parents well after dark and actually survived to tell about it. That was a different time and we live in a much different world. The reality of Halloween is that nothing fresh is safe, we trust the packaged brand name candy, and want our children to just be happy. Therefore, we allow the high fructose corn syrup laden candy and attempt to ration it with validation of good parenting. The truth is—-we might as well be injecting heroin or allowing our kids to sniff bath salts for all that good validating happiness on one evening. Have you ever really looked at the candy labels? I hadn’t until I started trying to be more conscious. The all too tasty Mounds and Almond Joy contain hydrolyzed milk protein which is a pseudoname for MSG. Snickers (satisfying) contains partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Reese’s has a preservative in it that is closely related to butane. Mars and M&M’s are laden with artificial coloring as well as those Hershey’s products which are made with partially hydrogenated oil (major artery clogging stuff). It makes me want pass on rolling that Rolo to my pal! I’m no drug dealer!
Hence— a solution to our parenting woes—
“A few years ago, Michael and his 13 year old son Nicky got into an argument over Halloween candy. Nicky came home with his bag of loot, went to bed, and woke up the next morning to find that his dad had confiscated most of it. It played out the way these fights normally do, with the candy gone and Nicky going to his room.
Later, Nicky did some research online (to prove to his dad that candy isn’t so bad). He discovered that his dad was right (for once).
It’s not that Nicky thought candy was healthy. It’s that he didn’t know how bad it really was. What Nicky learned was that the worst parts of candy (like hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives) aren’t there to make it taste good. They’re there to make it cheaper to produce.
Nicky had a hunch that without the junk, candy could taste better. With the help of his older brother Kris, and his dad, they set out to prove it.”
From that ingenious question stemmed a great corporation called “Unreal”. Unreal candy values not using HFCS or any artificial colors/flavors. Unreal products can be found at major retailers such as Kroger and Target. So thanks Nicky for being proactive and helping raise awareness that will benefit many generations of trick or treating yet to come.
Some of Unreal Candy’s ingredients:
Milk Chocolate (chocolate, skim milk, cane sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder, organic blue agave inulin, soy lecithin, vanilla extract), Peanuts, Cane Sugar, Calcium Carbonate, Peanut Oil, Colored with (beetroot juice, turmeric root extract, purple cabbage juice), Gum Arabic, Vanilla Extract, Carnauba Wax & Beeswax
Contains milk, soy, peanuts. May contain tree nuts, wheat
You can visit their site at http://www.getunreal.com
