Gluten-Free Halloween Candy

Trick or Treat?

Halloween is always fun for us. The neighborhood has a hayride and the kids all Trick-or-Treat together. It's fun to see all the different costumes and the kids are so excited!

My kids are old enough now that they usually want to go the entire route. Unless the daughter decides to go to a friend's neighborhood, like this year.

But The Boy stayed with his buddies in our neighborhood and we went with him. Sort of. He wanted to run with his pack, ahead of all the little kids.

Running is good. Especially given the amount of candy he is and will be consuming in the near future.

And he looked tired when he finally got done. Tired is good.

Of course The Boy was eager to see what he had gotten.

"I'm going to graph my candy!"

I had a pretty good idea of what he was intending to do, but this is not something I taught either of my kids. They just picked it up. Maybe at school? I do talk about graphs with them, nerd that I am, but I've never "graphed candy" myself. 

Later, when my daughter got home and saw his candy "graphed" on the table, she promptly did the same.

The question I immediately ask is: Which of these are gluten-free?

Gluten-Free Halloween Candy

I have a general sense of which of these candies I can eat. There are many that are made on shared equipment and may not be safe for other gluten-free individuals. I do my own poking around on websites as needed to identify whether I should risk eating something. Sometimes I want to try something, so I do risk it. This only happens with products that don't contain gluten as an ingredient, but the packaging warns of possible cross-contamination.

Please, be safe and only consume what you are sure is safe for you.

Many others have compiled excellent lists of gluten-free Halloween candy. Some are sorted by manufacturer, some by name, some by the type of candy. Note that some of them have conflicting information. When in doubt, do your own research. Here are just a few lists that I found helpful.

http://celiacfamily.com/gluten-free-halloween-candy/ - organized by "safe", "use with caution", "not safe"

http://www.celiac.com/articles/22704/1/Gluten-free-and-Gluten-safe-Halloween-Candy-2011/Page1.html - organized alphabetically, with unsafe list at bottom

http://surefoodsliving.com/2011/10/gluten-free-halloween-candy-quick-list-2011/ - organized by manufacturer, alphabetically

http://whatisgluten.net/2011-gluten-free-candy-list/ - organized by candy name, alphabetically


Here are some of my own determinations, based on what my kids brought home this year.

Gluten-Free and Safe for me to eat: 

Butterfinger
M&Ms
Dum Dums
Tootsie Pops
Starbursts
Dots
Snickers
Skittles
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
LifeSavers Gummies
Jolly Ranchers Hard Candy

Not quite sure if gluten-free and/or safe to eat: 

Hershey's (conflicting information)
Nerds
Laffy Taffy (conflicting information)

Never safe to eat: 

Twix
Kit Kat
Oreos
Twizzlers
Nestle Crunch bars
Gobstoppers
Whoppers

Happy and safe gluten-free candy consuming!