But parents as well as kids need to be aware of the problems out in the world when it comes to getting candy from strangers. Waaaaaaaay back when, when I was a kid and went out trick or treating, we pretty much stuck to our own neighborhood, and 90% of the time we knew everyone whose house we went to. I am afraid these days that isn't the case.
Now I'm not going to go on about the old razor blades in apples deal or anything like that. Sure it still may happen on occasion and is something parents definitely need to keep an eye our for as well as kids. But there can be other problems in addition to psycho people who get off on giving razor bladed apples or candy "laced" with something.
It can be as simple as some old stuff that has passed it's sell by date. Or something that should be sealed up and the seal has been broken. Or it could be something like this. There is a chocolate covered candy coin, Sherwood brand Pirate's Gold milk chocolate coins, that has been recalled after testing positive for an industrial chemical called melamine.
Here are a few links to stories concerning this issue:
Yahoo Stories
Truth Or Fiction.com
Congo
Snopes
and here is a picture of what the candy looks like
Unfortunately there are a few problems with this besides the fact that the candy is bad. From the pictures you can see that they sell these in either a small bag or a smaller pint container. Odds are if someone has these to give out they are not going to give each kid a whole bag or even a whole pint container of the candy. They are most likely going to just have them mixed in a large bowl or something like that for kids to pick from. So it's going to take some looking to see if the ones being given out are the bad ones or not.
The other problem is stuff like this is the kind of stuff that kids eat on the run, it's small and easy to unwrap and pop in their mouth. So it could be gone from your kids bag before they even get home.
Best scenario here in my opinion is to make sure to warn your kids before they go out that there is some bad chocolate candy coins out there and to please hold onto them until they get home so you can check them out and make sure they aren't the bad ones.
From what I can see from the picture it looks like the coins have an embossed image of the Liberty Bell on one side, and a head shot of Ben Franklin on the other. So maybe show the picture above to your kids so they know what to look out for and ask them to please hold off on eating any chocolate coins until they get them home and you can check them out.
I'm not going to go on and on about all the other possibilities that are out there on bad candy or apples, etc. There are way to many to list. Obviously the possibility is out there for your kids to get some bad stuff. But you don't want to ruin the fun of Halloween and getting TONS of candy for your kids. Just ask them to please be smart and check out anything they get before they eat it while they are out and about. Tell them to use common sense, I know I know...this is kids we are talking about, but tell them anyway. If something doesn't look like it's in it's original container, wrapper, box, etc., tell them to hold off till they get home so you can check it out.
And don't let stuff like this ruin Halloween. As I said, we all know that it does indeed happen, but not often enough to make yourself or your kids crazy worrying about it. As long as they use just a little bit of common sense and care, they will be fine.
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