It’s All Hallow’s Eve, and being freaky is the name of the game. Strolling through your neighborhood over these past few weeks, you’ve surely encountered skeletons, spiders, zombies, and other ghoulish symbols that instill the vibes of the season.
Plenty of foods go hand-in-hand with October 31st as well. Here are some freaky facts about four of the most common Halloween victuals.
Candy: Of course every trick-or-treater expects candy to be on the other side of each door they knock on. The National Retail Federation estimates that every person in the United States will spend $24.49 to satisfy these expectations. Freaky, right?! But trust me, you’d need a pretty thick skin to be known as the house that gives out pens every year. And long gone are the days of handing out homemade treats.
The key is knowing how to handle the payload of candy your kids bring home at the end of the night. It’s okay to create your own house rules on the distribution of treats. One of our rules is for the adults to hide the stash and only allow a little at a time. Candy is one of the foods I don’t have a problem with throwing out, so the stockpile dwindles pretty quickly.
Pumpkins: Ubiquitous in the fall, pumpkins are truly honored tonight of all nights. Long gone are the days when you’d stop by your local pumpkin patch for the one and only variety—big and orange—to adorn your front stoop. Today we can freak out over more than forty-five varieties of pumpkins, and they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.
After you choose your pumpkins and create your best jack-o-lanterns, make sure you roast up the seeds for a nutritious snack that will chase all that candy. Also experiment with some of the delicious baking variety of pumpkins, such as the Orange Smoothie. Roast them up and freeze the pulp for use in your pumpkin pies, muffins, and soups. Pumpkin puree doesn’t only come in a can, y’all.
Bobbing for apples: Here’s the game that makes an appearance at any traditional Halloween party. Ever wondered how this particular tradition got started? The website ThoughtCo.com shares the freaky fact “that apple bobbing goes back at least a few hundred years, that it does appear to have originated in the British Isles (Ireland and Scotland in particular), and that it originally had something to do with divination (fortune telling).” The original iteration of the game involved bobbing for an apple, peeling it, spinning the peel around your head in the proper direction, then throwing it over your shoulder to see what letter it would form as it fell—thus revealing the initial of your true love’s name. Wowza, right?
When you’re picking up your supply of apples for bobbing, don’t forget to stock your pantry too. From their polyphenol-filled peels to their cardiovascular-health-promoting flesh, this fall fruit offers nutritious benefits with every bite.
Soups and stews: The perfect meal to get simmering away while you cruise the neighborhood with your little gremlins. When you get home, a warming, nourishing bowl of goodness will be waiting to fill your bellies. It’s freaky to think about how long ago this cooking tradition began. Some say the first soups have been around since 6,000 BC (with interesting ingredients like hippopotamus and sparrow meat), while others claim that humans have been making soup for more than 25,000 years.
Given the simplicity and healing properties of soup making, it’s not hard to believe that our ancestors relied on it as much as we do today. Thumb through Nourishing Broth by Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla T. Daniel to blow your mind on all things soup. This cookbook will make you a believer quicker than you can say abracadabra.
There are freaky (and fascinating) facts about most any food you can think of. Part of the fun of being a self-healther is seeking them out. Do you know any freaky facts about your favorite Halloween food?
Images from iStock/Choreograph (main photo), Tatiana Volgutova (pumpkin soup).
Paula Widish, author of Trophia: Simple Steps to Everyday Self-Health, is a freelance writer and self-healther. She loves nothing more than sharing tidbits of information she discovers with others. (Actually, she loves her family more than that—and probably bacon too.) Paula has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Public Relations and is a Certified Professional Life Coach through International Coach Academy.
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