NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — As the little ghosts and goblins bring home a huge haul for Halloween, Dr. Amberlee Taylor of North Royalton Pediatric Dentistry is making sure those treats don't come back to haunt them.
"Chocolate is going to be the best candy, because when you place it in your mouth, it's going to melt away," Dr. Taylor explains. "Anything that's going to stick in your teeth and stay there for a long period of time is pretty much what you do want to avoid."
That makes candies like Blow Pops a double whammy. The long-lasting sugar of hard candy, plus the chewy center.
Then there's Sour Patch Candy, a triple-threat of enamel-eating sour acids and sugar plus sticky.
And it matters not just which candy kids eat, but when. The best time is right after mealtime.
"When we eat, our saliva builds up and now you're going to go ahead and wash away the chocolate," says Dr. Taylor.
So now that it's practically raining candy in your house, what should you do with all that sugar?
Cleveland Clinic Child Psychologist Dr. Kate Eshleman says to set expectations and adds that it's helpful to give them warnings.
To give you some idea of how much kids can eat, pediatricians recommend a daily limit of 25 grams of sugar for children. That's four mini-Twizzlers, three Twix minis, or two fun-sized Snickers.
Did you know that you can recycle candy wrappers? Well, sort of. At Ganley Subaru in Wickliffe, you'll find a drop-off box to collect candy wrappers that are shipped to a company called TerraCycle, which specializes in recycling hard-to-recycle material.
Sweet ways to make Halloween candy a little less scary for us all.