Hallowe’en trick or treating with a vegan child

This week on Spawn Better we’re taking a look at Hallowe’en and veganism. Today we’ll discuss dealing with the treats your child might receive, and Wednesday we’ll cover some ideas on how what to give out if you’ve got neighbourhood kids knocking on your door.

As always, my thanks to the Council of Vegan Parents for their input on this!

Vegan parents are big fans of Hallowe’en

Let’s get this out of the way first: every single member of the Council who responded had a system in place from previous years, and none of them involved keeping their children away from trick or treating. Yes, there’s a lot of junk food involved, and some had ways of mitigating that which we’ll cover below, but nobody was trying to deny their children the Hallowe’en experience.

Kimberly phrased it well: “I want for them to still participate in fun activities so that they don’t feel like outsiders amongst their peers but there’s no way I want them eating most of the junk that they receive.”

So what do you do with all that “junk?”

Tradesies!

Most Council members had some kind of trading system in place, either for the entire haul or just the non-vegan stuff. For younger kids, you can often get away with this without them even knowing, because they’re not going to know the difference between different candies, but many parents reported great success involving their children actively in the process.

Trades can be for other vegan-friendly candy, or a special toy or book or puzzle, or even money. Julie’s family invented the “Hallowe’en Fairy” who conducted the exchange in the dead of night, but the following year they opted for a more open trade as their son got older.

If your child is trick or treating with other non-vegan children, Doh points out that trading can be super easy to do right on the spot, but it can get frustrating if the neighbourhood happens to give out more non-vegan than vegan stuff.

Getting rid of the surplus

Rather than throw the extra candy out, most parents in the Council opted to donate it to food banks or leave it at their workplace’s common area for others to enjoy. Depending on the timing, you might even be able to “re-gift” it the same night. If you’re wondering about the ethics of donating non-vegan stuff, even if it’s to other non-vegans, we did a video over on Staying Vegan that talked a bit about that, with some helpful comments as well.

What about sugar and bone char?

As you might already know, refined sugar is often filtered through bone char, and it’s difficult to guess but safe to assume that most if not all of the candy given out (unless it’s from a vegan house who did their homework) is going to involve animal products in some small way. Our Council members chose to either give it a pass or do one of the trade techniques mentioned above.

Have your (Spooooky!) say

What about you? Have you had any (real or imagined) nightmares about Hallowe’en with your child? Did things go sweetly or did they turn sour? Share your stories and experiences (and questions!) in the comments so we can continue to help each other out!

A super-huge thanks to Denise, Kimberly, Kari, Sarah, Rebecca, Doh and Julie for their help on this one!

Tagged as: culture, halloween, junk food, treats, trick or treating, tricks