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Posts Tagged ‘healthy Halloween’

5 Tips for a Rainforest-Friendly Halloween

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Guest post by our friends at Rainforest Alliance

Photo: “Cocoa Beans” credit Rainforest Alliance

With Halloween just around the corner, it’s time to stock up on chocolates and sweet treats for the inevitable rush of trick-or-treaters. Ensure your holiday is scary in spirit, but easy on the environment with the Rainforest Alliance’s five tips to green your Halloween.

1)      Choose Rainforest Alliance Certified™ chocolate, such as by Endangered Species, for Halloween treats. Farmed on over 18 million acres of tropical land, some five million farmers rely on cocoa for their livelihoods. Unfortunately, many of these clear forests to expand their cocoa-growing lands. By choosing chocolate that features the green frog seal, you’re rewarding farmers that protect tropical forests and support the well-being of workers and local communities.

2)      Make terrifyingly tasty treats with Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate, bananas and coffee. Check out our “Haunted Halloween Recipes” and visit our Shop the Frog page to find certified products near you.

3)      Teach your kids where their favorite chocolate treats come from and how they impact people, wildlife and the planet. Visit the Rainforest Alliance’s Kids’ Corner and play the online game Track it Back, to learn where chocolate comes from, where cocoa is grown and how it is harvested! Also visit our virtual rainforest, “Living in the Chocó Forests of Ecuador: The Chachi Cocoa Farmers.” (Brush up on your own knowledge about cocoa farming here.)

4)      Ensure your little trick-or-treater collects candy with a reusable bag.

5)      Instead of driving, walk your tick-or-treater around your local neighborhood. By walking, you are helping to save emissions, while also saving on your gas bill! It will also help to burn off the extra candy calories!

Keep it up! Supporting an eco-friendly lifestyle should be a daily event, not an occasional act. With a little thought, and some guidance from the Rainforest Alliance, you can easily apply these green Halloween tips to your everyday life.

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The Rainforest Alliance works with people whose livelihoods depend on the land, helping them transform the way they grow food, harvest wood and host travelers. From large multinational corporations to small, community-based cooperatives, businesses and consumers worldwide are involved in the Rainforest Alliance’s efforts to bring responsibly produced goods and services to a global marketplace where the demand for sustainability is growing steadily. For more information, visit www.rainforest-alliance.org.

5 Fun Eco-Friendly Fall Activities

Monday, October 29th, 2012

By Wendy

With the cooler temperatures outside, we’re finally getting into swing of fall. Before it gets too chilly out and the snow begins to hit the ground, enjoy the autumn season with these 5 fun and eco-friendly activities you can do with the entire family:

1- Visit a national state park for a hike- hiking is a great thing to do with the entire family. You’ll not only get to enjoy the great outdoors, but you’ll also get the heart pumping, nice quiet picnic along the hike and maybe see some forest animals.

2- Check out the fall foliage at your local park- take a stroll at your nearest park on a sunny afternoon and you’ll see trees with leaves change from green, to yellow, orange and red. It also makes for beautiful pictures!

3- Go apple picking- whether its apple picking or pumpkin picking, there are tons of local farms that start their picking season’s right after Labor Day and into the Fall season. It’ a fun weekend event for the family. Plus there are tons of activities right on the farm, from corn maize’s, hayrides, haunted houses, apple cider, and more. Check online for local farms and orchards in your area.

4- Make a delicious butternut squash soup- or maybe even a tomato basil soup. Head to your local farmer’s market and you’ll be able to find the fresh and locally sourced produce to make something delicious that will warm up everyone’s tummy.

5- Make your own Halloween costume- with Halloween a week away and no costume, it might be time to get creative this year and make your own costume. You can use any materials you want, from things you already have at home, like cardboard, construction paper, and glue, to picking up a few things at your local craft store. Have the kids come up with ideas and start decorating!

So whether you choose to go hiking or apple picking at your local farm this fall, have some eco-friendly fun this season this year with the family! What’s your favorite fall activity?

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Wendy Yu is a digital marketing professional living in New York City. When she’s not using the power of social media to share ideas on how to be more environmentally friendly, she is exploring the city, trying local foods, and learning more about how she can reduce her carbon footprint.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Green Halloween® or our partners.

Healthy Halloween Recipe: Roasted Potato “Ghosts”

Friday, October 26th, 2012

by Corey

This healthy (and gluten free!) Halloween idea couldn’t be easier. Or cuter. Or yummier.

Roast the “ghosts” then let kids “decorate” them with organic sour cream (or cream cheese) and sliced olives (or even colorful bits of veggies if your ghosts are willing to wear more than white).

What you’ll need (use organic ingredients whenever possible):

  • Potatoes
  • Olive oil or butter
  • Sea salt
  • Sour cream or cream cheese
  • Black olives, sliced

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Slice potatoes length-wise, about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick. Trim bottoms flat (don’t toss what you cut off, bake and eat too!). Lay on pan, single layer and brush with butter or olive oil on both sides. Sprinkle with salt. Roast for 30-40 minutes. Cool. Spread on sour cream or cream cheese. Add olive eyes.

… and presto! Boo-tiful “edible decor” for your Halloween bash!

What are your fave healthy (or healthier) Halloween eats? Do share! We can’t wait to eat ‘em – er, we mean read ‘em.

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Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of  Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.

Pumpkin Carving: One Step Closer to a Tasty and Healthy Snack

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

It’s time to start carving pumpkins!

Be sure to save the seeds as they make a great tasting and healthy snack. Pumpkin seeds provide our bodies with zinc which is perfect at this time of year to help ward off colds. We love roasting pumpkin seeds and trying different combinations of flavors. We always do some with sea salt, then we mix things up a little by using things like garlic salt and Worcestershire, or for a sweeter flavor we
sprinkle on cinnamon and nutmeg! It’s fun to get your kids involved and let them create fun combinations! We’ll share our favorite recipe and cooking method you!

What you’ll need:

  • Medium Pumpkin
  • Olive Oil
  • Sea Salt

What to do:

* Preheat oven to 400 F. Cut open pumpkin and scoop out the insides into a big bowl. Add water to the bowl to help separate the seeds from the stringy flesh (a lot of the seeds will just float up to the top!) and then rinse seeds in a colander.

* To make the seeds nice and crunchy we boil our seeds before putting them in the oven. You can skip this step if you’d like as it’s not essential. In a small pot add the seeds (for a medium pumpkin is around 1/2 cup) to approximately 2 cups of water. Add 1 tablespoon of sea salt. Bring to a boil and then let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

* Remove from heat and drain.

* Spread Olive Oil on the bottom of a roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet then spread the seeds (try not to have the seeds touching). Bake on the top rack until the seeds are golden brown 10 -20 minutes depending on how brown you like the seeds.

*Take out of the oven and allow seeds to cool. Then enjoy this tasty fall snack!!

Happy Healthy Eating

Kia

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Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!

This will spook you! 3 News headlines that scream “Beware!” & what YOU can do about it

Saturday, October 20th, 2012

by Corey

Clearly, it’s dangerous to be alive. The news proves it daily. Even without a t.v., terrifying stories grab hold of my consciousness and fuel my neurotic tendencies via my smart phone, at the grocery store check-out, and in the parking lot of my kids’ school (“Did you hear what happened…? Soooo scary!”

But somehow the fear factor is amplified at Halloween, and tales of horror-in-real-life seem to multiply like bunnies in springtime. Only not as cute.

Now, we all know that much of the spook-fest prompted by the media is simply motivated by ratings; apparently, Wes Craven and the likes are on to something (who knew?). Fear sells. But it’s also true that some of it is really, truly real and really, truly scary. And some of it is important to be aware (aka: beware!) of.

But how not to turn concern into freeze or freak out? How to feel better about better-for-people-and-planet steps?

Since it’s launch in 2007, Green Halloween has been all about creating meaningful change through fun; about healthier holidays without the yuck; greener steps that are easy. No finger wagging, preaching, or in-your-face tactics. We don’t believe that fear is as motivating as joy, as yum and as simple. And you’ve told us you agree.

But at the same time, Green Halloween has always focused on addressing serious health and environmental concerns like heavy metals in face paints, candy made with junk instead of real food, and waste generated by decor, candy and costumes as well as the packaging from all the aforementioned. The reasons Green Halloween matters (in addition to the yum and the fun, which matter a lot) are far too numerous.

Take these recent headlines:

I don’t know about you, but all of this is concerning in my book.

But as we already established, fear is about as inspiring as a rotten pumpkin, so it’s important to counter dread-filled headlines with do-able, affordable, feel-good solutions. Otherwise, we’ll all end up looking like the sorry soul in Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream.

Green Halloween is the antidote to gloom and doom. And we make it easy-breezy.

And because you, and people all around you, refuse to “freeze” from fear, and instead embrace the possibility that Halloween can be healthy and tasty, non-toxic and cool, sustainable and affordable, eco-fabulous and fun, good news is now front page:

Have some good news to share about greening Halloween? Do share!

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Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of  Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.