Around the end of October the weather begins to change. Halloween, the day when children everywhere don creative costumes to go hunting for treats arrives, and the seemingly normal next-door neighbor’s yard suddenly becomes strewn with cardboard head stones and fake spider webbing. But what to do when gluten is an issue?

As a child, the costume was definitely the biggest part of Halloween every year, far overshadowing the inevitable small pile of collected candy. Like most little kids, I would know weeks in advance what I wanted to be that year; a princess, a flower fairy, super girl, just to name a few. Not knowing that I was Celiac at the time, but still having many other food sensitivites related to bad vaccine reactions as an infant, most candy, certainly anything brightly colored, or containing high-fructose anything, was out. Commercial sweets and candies were really not something I was used to anyway; the gluey smell of artificial color and sugar actually made me sort of sick. Instead, for years around Halloween, my Mom would find, or make, healthy alternatives for sweet treats available, so neither I, nor my friends would feel we were missing out in any way. And none of us did, in fact I don’t think anyone even thought about the fact that they weren’t eating “real” M&M’s. Instead, it was more about having fun with friends. Continue reading →