Happy Halloween my friends! Here we go, another holiday that revolves around food….

Difference? I can enjoy these foods!

I know everyone is different with the foods that they can tolerate but for me personally, non chocolate candy has always been a safe food of mine. Whether I was just out of the hospital after a flare up, recovering from surgery, laying in the hospital, or just plain petrified to eat because of all my body had been through, candy was something I felt safe eating.

I vividly remember so many times when I would lay in my bed, feeling awful, in pain and with no appetite, and the only thing my parents could get me to eat was gummy bears. I know this sounds a little strange given that sugar isn’t healthy, candy is empty calories, and there is a lot of hype surrounding the The Specific Carbohydrate Diet and Paleo Diet which omits sugar completely but throughout every single stage of my illness (colon, no colon, Jpouch, temp ileostomy, perm ileostomy number 1, kock pouch times 5, and this new ostomy), candy has always been okay for me.

I barely ate at Get Your Guts in Gear and wasn’t planning on it until I got home until gummy bears were in front of me. Before that, all I had was a couple skittles (ha) and some cup a noodle.

I won’t say this is the case for everyone but I have talked to a lot of IBDers who also look at candy as a safe food. No nuts and limit the chocolate and see how you feel is my advice.

Halloween is supposed to be a fun holiday. For those of us who have Crohns disease or ulcerative colitis, the thought of a holiday revolving around food can be frustrating. I just hope you realize that even if you can’t stuff your face with candy, there is still more to the holiday than food. Dress up, do something different, use it as a time to be someone other than you. Every day, we all strive to be the best version of ourselves but today is a chance to be someone completely and totally different. It is a chance to escape the person, life, and situations that you deal with every single day.