Post Halloween Pumpkin Plan

Do you have a post Halloween pumpkin plan? It may sound strange but Halloween pumpkins are a huge source of food waste and there are some great alternatives to dispose of your pumpkins that don’t involve throwing them in the trash.

Ways to reduce pumpkin waste:

• Feed the pigs! Call your local farms to see which accept pumpkins. Many of them will let you feed them to the pigs or other farm animals. Or, you can drop them off.

• Compost them!

  • In your backyard compost.

  • In your municipality. If your town doesn’t offer composting, now is a great time to ask them to start.

  • Local gardens and farms often have programs to accept them.

• Eat them! If you haven’t turned them into Jack O'Lanterns (or if you only just did so), you can roast pumpkin flesh and make all sorts of delicious dishes. My favorite are these pumpkin muffins by Minimalist Baker. I also recently tried these pumpkin muffins by Nora Cooks and they were like mini cakes. You can also roast the seeds. And, since the famous Pumpkin Spice Lattes are not vegan, you can go ahead and make your own Vegan PSL, too.

Remember, when bringing to the farm or to compost, check with each place if you have painted your pumpkins as many may not accepted painted pumpkins.

Vegan Halloween Tips and Tricks

Here are my go-to vegan-friendly Halloween candies and snacks and some tips on how to navigate this holiday with kids.

Vegan Halloween Options

Plant Based Products We Love:

• Vegan Sugar Candy - I love YumEarth candy because they are free from dyes and nearly all of their treats are vegan (just skip the gummy bears). They have snack pack sizes, perfect for Halloween, for their Giggles (like Skittles), Gummy Fruit, Chewys (like Starburst), and Choco Yums (like M&Ms). This is our go-to.

• Vegan Chocolate Treats -My favorite chocolate treat is Little Secrets Dark Chocolate Crispy Wafers. The brand is not all vegan but this product is and in general, dark chocolate options are much more likely to be vegan (versus milk chocolate) so always check dark chocolate labels first. I also love the vegan products from Cocomel and Unreal like the Coconut Bars, and am excited to try some new-to-me ones this year like the Peanut Cups. Unfortunately their snickers-dupe has whey (milk). My go-to Peanut Butter Cup has been from Justin’s - again, just go for the dark chocolate options and skip the milk and white chocolate variations.

• Food Treats - Any packaged snack food can be used for Halloween. Some of our favorites are Bearsnacks Fruit Rolls (I saw they introduced a sour option!), Trader Joes Fruit Leathers and Fruit Dots, SkinnyPop mini popcorn, veggie straws (they have fun Halloween shapes too!), apple sauce squeezies, Oreos and Nature’s Bakery fig bars. I am excited to try some new Made Good products too.

Plant Based Tips and Tricks:

Vegan Halloween Options

• Switch Witch - The idea of the switch witch is that the witch switches the non-vegan treats for the vegan ones. You can literally dress up as a witch and have a different bag that you carry with your approved treats and when your kid trick-or-treats, you can swap with whatever they get. Keep a separate spot for those and donate them later. OR, you can have your kid collect candy for the night and leave their bag or basket out for the switch witch to switch overnight.

• Keep approved candy on hand - All month long, I have YumEarth treats in my bag. When my son receives a non-vegan treat at an event or from a friend, I check it out and if it’s not something I’m comfortable with (we also skip dyes) then I simply offer him something else.

• Trunk or Treats - With friends, you can prepare ahead of time and either ask everyone to go plant-based for the event and share with them your favorite brands, or you can pre-make your kid’s bags and give them to your friends ahead of time.

• Look for Teal Pumpkins - The teal pumpkin project is an effort to provide kids with food allergies a safe alternative. Since milk and egg are top 9 food allergens, teal pumpkin treats are more likely to also be vegan. However, you do still have to look for things like gelatin (in many gummy bears and gummy candy) and confectioner’s glaze (in many coatings or shell candy like M&Ms) as those are not vegan.

• Talk to Your Neighbors - If you have a close knit neighborhood, you can talk with your neighbors ahead of time and even give them something ahead of time to hand out when your kiddo comes by.

Avoid Tricky Ingredients:

• Carmine (often listed as cochineal extract or Natural Red 4) is made from insects.

• Gelatin is made from animal bones.

• Whey and casein are milk protein.

• Natural flavors - A catch-all for anything else the company wants to add. Unless the product explicitly states that it's vegan, we have no way of knowing if the natural flavors are vegan.

Name Brand Accidentally Plant-Based Products: I really don’t love most common candy because of their ingredients, but here is a short list of some name brand items that are accidentally plant-based. Remember to always check the label and ingredients can change (and this is why I prefer brands that are 100% vegan). This comes from Peta.

• Swedish Fish, Airheads, Smarties, Sour Patch Kids, Blow Pops, Dots, DumDums, most skittles (not blue), twizzlers (Note that most red, orange, and purple candy have red dye 40 which I avoid 99.9% of the time because of the health risks.)

Thank you to my friends and family who are always so kind to me and my son by offering vegan options at holidays. It never goes unnoticed. We feel so loved.

Enjoy the holiday, plant-based friends!

Tracy