Trick-or-treating is not a completely sweet idea. The kids do go out for some fresh air, exercise by walking down the neighborhood blocks, and frolic through the darkness while getting scared witless by wandering ghosts, goblins, and B-movie monstrosities. Despite the fun to be had, the truckload of candy these kids find worries people, and for good reason.

You’re off brainstorming ideas on how to get your children a healthy school lunch, or healthy eating habits in general, and Halloween’s getting them agitated about the amount of candy they’re about to gather and guzzle down. It throws you off your game, with the chocolate bars, lollipops, rainbow candies, and candy corn seemingly raining from the sky, and you keep flashing back to that odd nightmare of cavities you had a few days ago. Cavities aren’t the only thing that lurk inside these candies, mind you.

Peanut nougat bars, such as Baby Ruth and Snickers, might be filling, quick to eat, and sweeter than your grandma after winning bingo, but most of them contain trans fats, which slay your pancreas like a stake to a vampire heart and amp your cholesterol like the voltage of a lightning rod raising a monster. Baby Ruth bars in particular have the infamous high-fructose corn syrup sweetener, which killed more people than Jason, Freddy Krueger, Jigsaw, the Queen Alien, the Predator, and the Thing put together… times 800 and then some, and yet it didn’t get a horror movie of its own, apparently. Don’t let your child become the side character in a horror flick; get rid of these poisons.

Never fear if your little angel, or monster, starts complaining that there’s no candy to eat. You don’t have to start feeling like a quarantine agent with your chocolate bar ban, as there is a healthy alternative: some candy bars market themselves as natural and relatively unprocessed, made with organic cane sugar and caramel liquor instead of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats. The Ocho candy bar is one such example, and they can also be eaten year round in a healthy school lunch or offbeat snack.

Candies like Swedish Fish or candy corn contain paraffin wax, oils, and artificial colors to keep that cute little shape.  In addition, many cheaper chocolates, such as Hershey’s also use paraffin wax, and this wax is derived from petroleum. It is indigestible, and some kids have allergies to it. If you don’t want to make exceptions for Halloween from your healthy school lunch routine, keep the candies your children receive free of unnecessary additives. An easy way to convince your kids to give up their prized Snickers bars and Skittles is to tell them to gather as many candies as they can, come back, and trade in those they found for healthy, simple candies that they can eat and enjoy without poisoning themselves.

Not only can you come out on top against the true horrors of Halloween, but you can also teach your children what is okay to eat and what isn’t. You don’t have to compromise the occasion either, as your kids can still tumble through the fog in the dark streets of Gothic England and run in terror from someone wearing a costume that’s a bit too scary, all for the sake of candy at the end of the journey. It’s just you won’t have to feel bad about sugary additives when you know exactly what your child is eating, just like for a healthy school lunch.