Talk or Treat- Let's Trade Halloween Candy

Hello everyone! We are back for another round of Talk or Treat, where we grab a snack or a drink and talk about something seasonal for Blogtober. Tonight, I am snacking on some apple and cinnamon pull-apart bread that my mom made! It is delicious, and I have been really into cinnamon this season.

What have you treated yourself to today? Let me know in the comments! If you haven't already, treat yourself this week to something whether it be a small snack or your favorite drink.

For today's talking subject, I wanted to learn into the nostalgia that I have surrounding Halloween and talk about the Candy Trading Industry. This is a very serious topic, and in order to navigate having a successful night of trick-or-treating, you must be well versed in the art of the trade.

Throughout my childhood I have had various numbers of siblings aside from my brother, and many nights of trick-or-treating between mom and dad's house. I always ended up with way more candy than I should have, but the amount didn't matter as much as the value of the items in my stash.

Immediately after returning home from running door-to-door, everyone would sit in the living room and dump out their candy to get an overview.

The first preliminary step is sorting. You have to take stock of every candy and every category. While you do this, you have to think about your approach for this year's trade. Will you go for chocolates, fruity flavors, or even focus on the savory snacks like pretzels? Deciding your preferred flavor profile for that year was crucial for any trading tactic.

One thing I always did was a "discard" pile. This consisted of candy that was deemed "unworthy" of trading and would be split up at the end based on who was desperate enough to settle for it. These candies typically included Dots, raisins, warheads, fruit flavored Tootsie rolls, and black licorice.

It is also important to begin eating your haul while you trade. You can't think clearly about trade options if you don't have a mouthful of Nerds. As you tip the box of Nerds into your mouth, sneakily take a glance at your opponent's candy pile and size it up.

One candy that I will always trade away is anything grape flavored. Artificial grape is my least favorite candy flavor, and if I play my cards right I can get a good trade for something I really want from someone who cares about the brand instead of the flavor. The Nerds are a great example. I remember a lot of pink and purple Nerds boxes. We all know the pink ones were superior, but if your younger brother just sees the Nerds logo then both flavors are of equal value.

Typically, we trade the fruit candies first. I am a fruit fan, so I don't mind trading away chocolate. However, I do know their worth. By the end of the night I always had more candy just based on the fact that one chocolate bar was worth multiple fruit candies. The only chocolate I really cared about was the Midnight Milky Way. The others I just pretended to want to keep a hold of to create demand.

Being the elder sibling was serious, you cannot slack on Halloween and you have to use your age as an advantage. Of course, my brother has always been smart even when he was super little, but I had some tricks in quantity as well. The amount of candy that you had per category or brand was also very important. The more you had of one kind, the more likely it is to be traded. Dum Dums were always in abundance. Individually they all had various worth, but if you presented three for trade, then the value was equal and you can get a good pack of Twizzlers or sour straws, which were one of my favorites.

Liking the fruity candy worked out in my favor. I love Smarties, and for some reason I was always just given them freely without trade. It was their loss! I was also a big fan of any savory treats such as bags of pretzels or candy balls, but since those were sparse, everyone kept them and didn't trade.

The entire time the trading is in progress, everyone has candy in their mouth and the candy bag turns into a wrapper wasteland.

Depending on how good the candy was that year, trading would last until bed time and be put on hold to the next day. Also, as the days went on and we were getting sick of eating so much candy, supplemental trades would happen. If I got tired of eating just fruit candy, I could typically trade for some Milk Duds or even a Snickers from someone burnt out on chocolate.

The "discard' pile was also helpful for flavor fatigue, I remember not minding eating the raisins. They just had no trade value. The discard pile would be handed off to parents as well.

For kids, Halloween can be serious. It's not just about the costumes, the candy selection is equally important. I haven't lived in a typical neighborhood in many years, so I never hand out candy to kids. No one comes knocking! Are kids still trick-or-treating like they used to? And do you hand out a lot of candy on Halloween night, or are you out with kids or siblings to help them get some candy?

Let me know, and I will see you all tomorrow!