Trick or Trigger? Halloween Safety for Allergy Patients

First published October 2016
Updated October 2025

Many adults enjoy indulging in and handing out chocolaty treats on Halloween while experiencing conflicting feelings about all the sugar that children consume on the holiday. Instead of sugary delights, many families hand out non-edible treats– things like play dough, creepy toy bugs and spider rings. The little kids enjoy getting something different and parents usually appreciate the effort.

The good reasons for giving non-edible treats to little ghosts and witches go beyond sugar intake: some children have a life-threatening food allergy. For these families, Halloween can be a very stressful time. Even though children really enjoy dressing up and trick-or-treating with their friends, families experience a lot of stress about which candies are brought home. Reading labels at home before allowing the treats to be eaten is standard behavior for families who have allergies. Eating the wrong thing could lead to a terrible reaction.

Our patients with food allergies must be extremely careful about avoiding their allergy trigger foods, especially around Halloween. Most families are very strict in their avoidance, yet accidents still happen.

It’s not the children with allergies and their families that need to be reminded to avoid certain trigger foods; it’s everybody else.

Many Halloween treats contain common food allergens (i.e. peanuts or milk). With up to 8% of children having life-threatening food allergies, giving food to children that are not your own is risky. It’s important to ask kids (and their parents) if they have food allergies before giving them food on any day of the year, and Halloween should be no different.

If this seems impractical with hordes of kids coming to your door, this year consider the option of passing out a non-edible treat. You could even post a sign that says “allergen-free treats,” or use a teal pumpkin to indicate allergen friendly. Trick-or-treaters with food restrictions and their parents will appreciate it.

Search online for non-edible or alternative Halloween treat ideas or be creative and come up with one of your own!