Tricky treats: How to take the dietary, dental scare out of Halloween candy cache

Dentist Christopher Tyler of Cedar Rapids doesn't want to be 'that guy on the block' who hands out toothbrushes and floss on Halloween, only to have his house egged or pumpkins smashed in retaliation.

But he does care about his children's teeth and all the chompers of the little goblins who will be gobblin' up a bellyful of candy in the aftermath of the upcoming haunted holiday. He doesn't want those enticing treats to turn into tooth-rotting tricks, especially with more candy-laden holidays in the near future.

Moderation is the key.

'As a self-professed sugar freak, I will eat candy,' he admitted. 'If it's in moderation and you're not marrying yourself to that stuff and eating it consistently throughout the day, once in a while is fine — but an overload of it can have nasty effects down the road, with decay.'

Registered dietitian Nicole Johnson of Cedar Rapids agrees.

'With Halloween candy, if we can use it as an opportunity to teach kids to really enjoy their food and enjoy their candy, there's nothing wrong with it, but sugar isn't something we want to overdo on a regular basis,' said Johnson, who works at the Collins Road Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids, and is passionate about pediatric nutrition.

Since Tyler's daughters 'think candy is a food group,' he and his wife ration out the Halloween haul bit by bit to their kids, ages 6, 4 and 2 — with a toothpaste or water chaser.

'There's two schools of thought with that,' said Tyler, owner of the Tyler, Link & Barnes dental practice in Hiawatha. 'One: Don't let the kids have much of it at all, so you can manage the ill effects of that candy on their teeth and their general health. Or there's another school where parents will say, 'Have at it, eat it all.' Get rid of it all at once and then it's gone.'

Johnson, whose kids are 3 and 5, follows the advice of pediatric nutrition expert, researcher and author Ellyn Satter.

TEACHABLE MOMENT

In one of her books, Satter 'talks about Halloween as being a great opportunity to teach kids how to incorporate candy and sweets into a healthy diet,' Johnson said, 'because we all know sweets can be incorporated into a healthy diet. No one meal or snack makes or breaks your diet. Over an extended period of time, you receive the consequences of either eating healthy or not eating so healthy, right? ...

'What she teaches and what she encourages, is that parents let their kids go trick-or-treating. They come home, and typical kids will dump out their candy, look it all over (and) they might sort it.

'She encourages parents to let the kids eat as much as they want that night, and even the next day, let them eat as much as they want of their candy. Then, after that, you do regulate it. You have the kids eat just a couple pieces as part of a meal or part of a snack. Two pieces of candy would be part of a dessert.'

Johnson has seen that work with her own kids. 'If we don't restrict that, they're more likely to stop eating. My own kids might ask for a second piece of cake, and I've seen them stop eating a couple bites in, because they realize they're full,' she said. 'Over the course of time, if you restrict, that's when they're more likely to overeat.'

Kids are born with 'internal regulators,' she said, so when they're young, they will stop eating when they're full. Placing restrictions on them, however, can set up a power struggle for the 'forbidden fruit.'

'As parents, if we're doing a good job of feeding, that couple days of eating more candy than we would like them to on a regular basis isn't really going to hurt them.'

GOO FACTOR

From a dental standpoint, some candies are easier on the teeth than others. Sticky taffies and gummy snacks are harder to clean off the teeth, Tyler said. Jawbreakers also can live up to their name, cracking or breaking teeth if kids bite down on them. And any hard candy that soaks in the mouth bathes teeth in sugar, he added.

In combination, stickiness and sugar deliver a one-two punch — anything that can't be easily removed by the tongue or saliva is less desirable than candy bars.

'There's always a goo factor,' he said, so pretzels or crackers like 'gold fish' are even better choices to hand out on Halloween.

It's not just kids who are vulnerable to having a sweet tooth go sour. Candy is hard on teeth at any age, he said. It provides 'a major seed bump' for people wearing braces, increasing the chance of breaking brackets or popping off wires and offering 'a lot more spaces for stuff to get stuck in' and hide, making it harder to see the ill effects until they've set in.

'Sugar does not discriminate from an age standpoint,' Tyler said. 'Whether (you have) a mouthful of baby teeth, a mouthful of adult teeth or a mix in between, you can get damage, no matter what stage.' Damage to dental work 'is a definite concern for the adult population — not as much for the kids,' he said, noting that after Halloween and Easter, 'adults will come in with dental work that's come off because of sticky stuff. We definitely see an uptick.'

BEST PRACTICES

It's all a matter of common sense, he said. After eating candy, brush your teeth, floss or at the very least, swish water around your mouth to lessen the sugar- and associated acid attacks.

People who wear dentures don't get a free pass at the candy cache, either.

'From a tooth standpoint, yes, but not from a health standpoint,' Tyler said. 'There's not much nutritious candy out there. If there's a mild to moderate addiction in the candy sense, then you're putting your blood sugar (and) your general health in some caution category, along with the teeth.'

For children with food allergies, Halloween treats can be tricky, so Hy-Vee has launched a 'teal pumpkin' project. Placing a teal-painted pumpkin on your porch or front steps lets parents know that you have non-food treats, too. Make sure to keep the goody bowls separate, to avoid cross-contamination, Johnson said.

Even kids without food allergies get excited over receiving stickers, pencils and temporary tattoos, Johnson said, so she likes to offer those in addition to fun-size candy. Kids are used to getting those alternative, she noted, since schools are encouraging more non-food items for birthday treats.

BUY-BACKS

Want to keep the candy out of your house, pad the piggy bank — and pay it forward? Farmers State Bank and the Cedar Rapids Smile Center are offering cash for candy exchanges. Kids get some cash and U.S. troops will get the candy. Kids are encouraged to tuck a note into their stash, which will be sent with sweet treats.

The bank buy-back runs from Tuesday (11/1) to Nov. 5 at all the Farmers State Bank locations in Marion, Hiawatha, Cedar Rapids and Alburnett, and offers $1 for each pound of candy turned in.

Cedar Rapids Smile Center, 1260 Third Ave. SE, is doing a buy-back from 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday (11/1), paying $1 per pound of candy, up to $5. Details: Cedarrapidsdentalinfo.com