Seven Ways to Have a Healthy Happy Halloween!

Let’s be honest. People do not tend to associate Halloween with healthy activities. I will never tell people to stop enjoying Halloween sweet treats. It can be one of the little joys in life. Saying that, you can still take care of your personal wellness while embracing the Halloween season!

Apples and Pumpkins

Apples and pumpkins are associated with Halloween. Let’s start there. If you have not yet gone apple picking, it may not be too late. (Check out my last post about the health benefits of going apple picking.) You may also have the opportunity to visit a pumpkin patch and pick your own.

There are many ways to use these seasonal items. Need some suggestions? Here you go: With either, you can bake healthy muffins or breads. (Due to not knowing all of the rules regarding linking to others’ posts, I will provide general suggestions and let you find newly inspired favorites.) When it comes to muffins and breads, there is certainly a range on the “How healthy are they?” scale. Decide which you prefer, but remember that there are a lot of options.

Both apples and pumpkin can be incorporated into a cozy, delicious winter soup. To be honest, I have not made soup with pumpkin, but I have used other types of squash. Pumpkin is a type of squash, so let’s just incorporate a variety of different squashes (ie butternut, acorn, etc) into our fall culinary cuisine.

You can keep it simple while staying healthy. Slice up apples and dehydrate or bake them. Cut up a raw apple and dip the slices into peanut butter, another nut butter, or vanilla yogurt. Place some thin apple slices on your sandwich. Slice up some squash and bake. You can even find pre-cubed squash, fresh or frozen, at the grocery store. If you are cutting up a pumpkin for Halloween, rinse and roast the seeds. This works with a wide variety of squash. Add cut up apples to your oatmeal. Add cut up (after roasting) or pureed pumpkin (or any other squash) to your pasta or rice.

Certainly, feel free to look for recipes for meals which may incorporate the apples and/or squash. As previously mentioned, this may include soups. You can probably find a lot of recipes for other meal items such as casseroles or quiches. There are both savory as well as sweet recipes out there waiting to be discovered and tried! Challenge yourself to find a use for apples and squash in a breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and dessert creation.

You can enjoy your apples and pumpkins in a delicious seasonal beverage. Pick up a bottle of apple cider and see what types of cold or warm drinks you can create to enjoy all season long! Be your own barista and make your own pumpkin spice latte. You can find various recipes on-line, but in general, they seem to include some type of milk, pureed pumpkin, sweetener (ie honey, maple syrup, white sugar, brown sugar, monk fruit, artificial sweetener, etc), vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, and coffee. (The milk is heated with the other ingredients and then added to the coffee.) Get creative and tweak to your taste.

Take a Walk

Enjoy this weather! This is a perfect opportunity to go out and take a walk. Just make sure that you dress for the weather and, if you can only walk as it is getting darker our, make sure that you are easily visible. ENJOY–Enjoy the changing leaves; enjoy the smell of fall; enjoy the Halloween decorations! I don’t know why I don’t see as many Halloween door decorations now compared to when I was a kid, but you can still find some fun and spooky holiday decor. Go check it out. You may find local information about some of the “best houses” for Halloween decorations. If it works logistically, walk over and celebrate Halloween a bit early.

On Halloween, if you are not in charge of treat distribution, walk around the neighborhood and have fun taking it all in. You may not want to go ringing doorbells which is just fine. Perhaps just walk with a warm beverage and open eyes. (I don’t know if anyone else does this, but each Halloween I have an air pot full of coffee and one full of hot water for tea so that parents walking with their kids can get a warm drink to enjoy while taking their kids around the neighborhood. They get their own little treat! If you will be taking kids trick-or-treating, perhaps offer a “practice run” around the neighborhood a few days in advance—it gets you all out and moving together.

Get the Creative Juices Flowing

This is a perfect time to get back into good old-fashioned arts and crafts. This may be a relaxing activity such as coloring in Halloween coloring pages. If you want to do something that feels craftier and gets you out of you day to day routine but you do not want to feel overwhelmed, pick up a craft kit which includes all of the needed pieces. This still gives you the experience of using your hands, following instructions (if you choose), and creating something new. Perhaps pick up plain some wooden Halloween decorations that just require you to paint them.

Do you have a Jack-o-Lantern? Carve a pumpkin. Cleaning out the insides has the benefit of a tactile experience, plus, you get the seeds which you can later roast. If you are not comfortable with carving due to safety concerns or you simply don’t like cleaning out the inside, don’t carve it. Decorate the outside. You can paint it. You can glue on rhinestones, glitter, pieces of cloth, leaves, or whatever else suits your fancy.

If you want less structure, grab a canvas or wooden board and paint and just go for it! Use foam sheets to create some fun decor. (For years, I have put home made monster eyes on my front door. Personally, I prefer fun rather than gruesome decorations at home.)

You can also find plenty of books with ideas. Just open and see what you can find. It is fine to use someone else’s suggestions; no need to start from a complete square one. You can choose a project as basic or complex as you like. The idea is to simply use your mind and hands in creative way. If doing it alone is somewhat meditative, do it alone. If you opt to make it a family/friends activity, enjoy the low-tech social interaction.

Learn Something New

Take advantage of your public library. You can certainly find books that might have some great ideas for new recipes or crafts to create. What I frequently like to do is find a non-fiction book that shares different spooky, eerie, and interesting stories and information. It may be about unsolved mysteries. Explore bizarre historical information about a near-by city, other spooky places such as cemeteries and hotels, or other sites. If your neighborhood is on the quieter side when it comes to trick-or-treaters, these types of books are great to read while waiting to distribute the treats. The reading part is great, but with short segments or individual stories, it is truly no big deal if you don’t get through all of it. Reading these types of books around and on Halloween do help set the mood!

Going back to the food idea, use the holiday as the opportunity to use something old but in a new way. You can learn more about apples—which are better for which uses, best climate for growing, find a way to incorporate apples into a savory dish, the science related to oxidation/turning brown. When looking at your pumpkin, maybe you will be interested in learning about the differences between different types of squash. What helps farmers grow the world’s largest pumpkins? Read about the health benefits of pumpkin seeds. Let the day to day inspire you to look a little farther. This does not have to be a big time commitment.

Read

As mentioned above, you can certainly read some spooky non-fiction. If you prefer, find a good novel inspired by the season. Perhaps you can find a good thriller, mystery, fantasy, or sci-fi novel to enjoy. Enter a new world through a book! If you are in a book club, although it may be too late for this Halloween, consider books inspired by the holidays. Plan ahead to find a mystery to all read next fall. Look into options for Thanksgiving or winter holiday inspired books to read later this year. I find that reading a book that connects to a holiday season enhances the holiday feeling. It can go up there with holiday decorations, music, and food.

Donate blood

This may not be directly good for your physical health, but giving back to others is great for your mental health. Blood donation seems very appropriate during the season of vampires! Check on-line for local blood drives or donation centers near you. Oftentimes you will get some personal health information as well such as your hemoglobin count and cholesterol level. ((Granted, the cholesterol level will not be a fasting level (which tends to be more accurate than a non-fasting one) since it is important to eat before donating blood.))

Learn the Thriller dance

Time to flash back to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”! Why? Learning choreography is a great challenge for the brain. Dancing is great physical activity. Plus, it is simply fun to do! You can decide to learn this on your own if you don’t want any sort of audience. Another option is to get a group of friends and/or family together to learn it. Make it part of you afternoon or evening plans. (If you do, feel free to share a video of the final production!)

I hope that these ideas and suggestions help you enjoy this fun time of year while still taking care of several aspects of your overall health. Please share any other ideas and any recommended experiences!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Let’s make it a Healthy Halloween while we are at it!