Key to healthy Halloween splurge is portion control

There’s a trick to enjoying Halloween treats as part of a healthy lifestyle.

The annual celebration of ghosts, goblins and gobbling candies doesn’t have to create cavities and widen waistlines. It turns out the best way to enjoy sugary bites is to embrace them as a sweet splurge and savor every molecule of chocolate, caramel, nougat and novelty candy.

Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate nutrition advice for Americans to eat healthfully and control calories includes a budget for “empty calories” from foods and beverages high in fat and sugar. Depending on how active you are, adults are allotted about 250 calories and kids about 150 calories to spend daily on treats.

Candies with benefits

The confection with the most-talked-about health benefits is chocolate. The benefits of chocolate come from the flavonoids, the antioxidants in the cocoa bean. Dark chocolate contains a higher percentage of cocoa than white or milk chocolate. The higher the percentage of cocoa in the chocolate candy, the higher the antioxidant content.

Of course, the good-for-you antioxidants keep company with the not-so-healthy fat and sugar in chocolates, so limiting portion sizes remains the gold standard in enjoying all sweets.

Fun sizes

The nice thing about Halloween candy is that it’s often packaged in perfectly portioned “fun sizes” so you can have some fun with a few different flavors without consuming too many “empty calories.”

For instance, a standard size bar of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate has about 200 calories, as compared to the fun size with about 80 calories. Or instead of eating the whole bar in one sitting, you could take the time to unwrap and slowly savor nine Hershey’s Kisses for the same 200 calories.

That’s in line with weight management advice to slow down and be more mindful when snacking.

Registered dietitian Sidney Fry of Cooking Light magazine says, “Sugar overload is a given on Halloween.” So she compiled a list of sweet statistics for some of the more popular candies that end up in trick or treat bags. Here are a few:

Hershey’s Assorted Miniatures — 1 miniature (8.6 grams): 42 calories, 1.4 grams saturated fat, 4.4 grams sugar

Starburst fun size — 2 Starburst candies: 40 calories, 0.8 grams saturated fat, 6 grams sugar

Smarties — 1 roll (7 grams): 25 calories, 0 grams fat, 6 grams sugar

Mounds snack size bar — 1 bar (17 grams): 80 calories, 3.5 grams saturated fat, 7 grams sugar

Kit Kat Wafer Bar, snack size — 1 bar (0.49 ounces/14 grams): 70 calories, 2.3 grams saturated fat, 7 grams sugar

Tootsie Roll snack bar — 1 bar (14 grams): 50 calories, 0.2 grams saturated fat, 7 grams sugar