candy

[bee15]

Is It A Bad Thing To Only Give Your Kids Candy And Sweets On Holidays. How Much Candy Should I Allow The Kid To Have

Please Any Help Would Be Nice:o :confused:

[veganloraine]

i don't believe giving a child only candy on a holiday or any day is a good idea. doing so will probably only lead to a hyperactive child with a tummy ache. i will allow my oldest son to have 1/2 a glass of pop on a holiday or special occassion, plus desert (we don't typically eat desert). this is plenty for our child, but each family is different.

fyi, we have a sweets shelf in the panty that the kids have access to all year round. i find that doing so has not given candy or other treats a "forbidden fruit" kind of appeal. 9 times out of 10 if i ask my oldest son if he would rather a cookie or an apple for a snack he will choose the apple.

[vegma]

My son is 7yo and we've never done candy (with the exception of vegan chocolate chips that we'll use to make treats). Our treats are homemade and generally healthy (I say generally because some of them do contain chocolate chips and/or maple syrup). When he was younger, I doled out 1 treat to each of us once a day ... on the days we had treats which is certainly not every day. For the last year or so, I've determined how many portions we have, divided them by the number of people in the family, and told my son he had "x" many - he can eat one a day or eat them all at once. Its been interesting to see that sometimes his treats last the most days and sometimes, he'll eat more early, but then make the last one last for 4 days (for example, he might cut his last cookie into quarters).

[celtic-womble]

I basically let DS eat what I eat so whenever I have candy I let him have a little piece. Helps keep my eating habits in check too!

He probably has about one sweet treat a day, usually a cookie of some sort. I usually have some sort of candy on the go (licorice scottie dogs from TJs right now) and if I have a piece I bite off a bit for him, usually the head with those ;) He gets chocolate once or twice a month. If I let him I'm sure he'd eat one of those Lindt 80% a day, remarkably sophisticated palate for a recently minted two year old!

I do let him go a bit crazier on vacation and at holidays. Apart from anything else we were recently in the UK and I found readily available vegan M&M type candies and chocolate buttons. Gotta enjoy that stuff while you can buy it! Today we're having a little b'day party for him and he'll get a whole cupcake for dessert. It's not massively junky, obviously vegan and the frosting is made with agave syrup, but still quite a bit more than he usually gets.

I figure if a 4oz glass of carrot juice is enough to send him on a sugar high he's probably not eating too much sugar elsewhere.