Healthy Halloween Treats

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31 October, apple a day, banana, bases, blood sugar, bones, bunch of bananas, carve, celery, chocolate chips, cool concoction, cool costumes, core, crunchy carrot, cucumber, drinks, eye of newt, five a day goal, freak, fruity frogs, fussy eaters, ghost, guests, Halloween, Instagram, jelly sweet, kiwi fruit, lychee, magic, marshmallows, munched, naughty, olives, party, pepper, photo, pumpkin, sick salad, silver platter, slice, sliced grapes, spiders, spooky snacks, strawberries, supreme, sweets and chocolates, tangerine segments, temptation, toe of frog, tomato sauce, Vitamin C, waistline, wash

With cooler than cool costumes being chosen and tricks being planned, Halloween is in the air and it is coming to get you!

While many of us think of stocking up on sweets and chocolates for 31st October, but these aren’t the only things you can serve up to party guests and doorstep visitors.

We have had a look at some spooky snacks which look, and taste great, but won’t play havoc with your blood sugar levels or waistline.

Haunted pizzas
Make your own bases, then add tomato sauce, cut out ghost shapes from mozzarella and make olives for eyes, and when it comes out of the oven, you will have a wicked haunted pizza that people will be dying to eat.

Serve a skeleton with slime
This idea is super simple but also totally delicious and good for you. Place slices of crunchy carrot, cucumber, pepper, and celery together on a plate in the shape of a skeleton. Then mix the eye of newt and toe of frog (avocado and lemon juice to you and I) and you will have slime to go with your bones.

Kiwi frogs
If you want to ensure that your five a day goal is reached, even when the temptation is to go for the toffees, fruity frogs are a real winner. Layer thick slices of ripe kiwi fruit, add a slice of strawberry to make a tongue, and blueberries are great for eyes, and you will soon have a healthy witching treat, even fussy eaters will enjoy.

Sick salad
This sounds gross, but it is actually really delicious. Buy an extra pumpkin, wash and clean it, carve out eyes and a mouth and put your masterpiece on a large plate. Then, place a cool concoction of fruit like strawberries, sliced grapes, tangerine segments, blueberries and melon balls in the mouth of the pumpkins, and you will have a sick salad just waiting to be eaten – but take a photo for Instagram (#halloween) before you do!

Banana ghosts
Now you see them, now you don’t! Banana ghosts are really simple to make, look brilliant, and are just a little bit naughty too. Take a bunch of bananas (medium-sized and not too soft), peel and chop them in half, stand flat side down on a plate, create mouths and eyes from chocolate chips and you have a seriously spooky offering.

Satsuma pumpkins
For a tempting dose of Vitamin C, why not use a little magic to turn your satsumas into pumpkins? Take a bag of the little lovelies, peel them, put them on a spooky napkin on a plate, add a carrot stick to make a stork and a sprinkling of plastic spiders, and you have created a scary masterpiece. You can also smear celery sticks with peanut butter, strategically place a handful of fake spiders and you’ll have some spooky logs just waiting to be munched.

Just add eyeballs
If you want to really freak your guests out, forget the ice and add eyeballs to their drinks. You can buy jelly sweet versions, or if you want to go for the natural option, stuff a lychee with a blueberry, pierce with a cocktail stick and then rest this on the rim of a glass and watch their mouths fall open!

We hope we have shown you that sweets don’t have to reign supreme when it comes to Halloween, and we wish you a very scary 31 October.

Team Pure Beauty

The good news about chocolate

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antioxidants, bad news, beauty routine, blood flow, blood sugar, brain, British Medical Journal, calories, chocolate, chocolate cake, circulation, cocoa, control your weight, Dr. Will Clower, Easter bunny, eatend, eggs, expectant mothers, Facebook, fat, Finland, good stuff, goodness, green tea, guilty, happy pills, Harvard Medical School, heart, hormones, insulin sensitivity, iron, KitKat, levels, lower blood-glucose levels, Mars bar, meal, memory decline, mini eggs, mugs, non-chocolate-eating parents, potassium, protect, RDA, researchers, scientists, selenium, sugar, Sun cream, sun damage, treat, trigger, two, win, zinc

The Easter bunny might be long gone, but it could be that you still have some chocolate eggs hanging around waiting to be eaten. Or not!

If you have and you are feeling guilty about finishing it off, we are here to tell you not to.

We have it from the powers that be, that chocolate is good for you.

Now, we aren’t talking about cramming down a family bag of mini eggs followed by a KitKat chaser, but as with most things, eating it in moderation doesn’t hurt.

It would seem that good quality, dark chocolate with a cocoa percentage of around 70% or more, can be good for the heart, circulation and brain, and could be beneficial for managing conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

Dark chocolate is full of health boosting minerals including potassium, zinc and selenium, and a 100g bar of the really good stuff provides 67 per cent of the RDA of iron – great for anyone looking to boost their iron intake!

Blood sugar levels are tricky to control but eating a square or two of dark chocolate can help maintain healthy levels of insulin sensitivity and turn this helps to lower blood-glucose levels. Win, win.

Research published in the British Medical Journal has suggested that eating a little dark chocolate could help lower the risk of developing heart disease by one-third, and that’s got to be worth considering?

Eating an entire chocolate cake with a side of Mars Bar isn’t going to help your waistline but, a little can help control your weight. The scientist, Dr. Will Clower, believes a small square of good chocolate melted on the tongue 20 minutes before eating a main meal triggers the hormones in the brain that says you are full. so you eat less. Think about it and finishing a meal with the treat and trigger could reduce subsequent snacking.

Apparently one mug of cocoa (using pure cocoa powder) has double the antioxidants of green tea and we think it tastes way better too. It is also worth noting that two mugs of cocoa may help keep the brain healthy and prevent memory decline, thanks to better blood flow. That’s according to scientists at Harvard Medical School, so it must be true.

Dark chocolate is jam-packed with the helpful flavonols that help to protect your skin against sun damage. You still need to layer on the sun cream but good to know that evening snack is helping your beauty routine.

Forget happy pills, if you want to feel good a little chocolate will boost your levels of dopamine, a natural painkiller, and serotonin, which produces feelings of pleasure. Eat up and feel the love.

We believe researchers in Finland found that chocolate reduced stress in expectant mothers, and that the babies of those mothers smiled more often than the offspring of non-chocolate-eating parents. Watch out for those new baby photos on Facebook to see who is snacking on chocolate.

The bad news! Yes, you know you couldn’t have it all. Sorry. However much goodness is packed onto a bar of chocolate, it is still pretty high in calories, fat and sugar – so make sure you eat in moderation if you want the good to outweigh the bad.

Team Pure Beauty