Have Your Candy and Eat it, Too
By Jodi Lipper & Cerina Vincent
People ask us if Hot Chicks eat candy, and all we can say is that since the Halloween themed miniatures appeared on store shelves, we have experienced the best that high fructose has to offer, sampled every variety of Reese's product available (who knew there were so many?) and our tongue is burnt raw from sucking on Sweet Tarts and Sour Patch Kids. Now, don't get us wrong; we don't feel one bit guilty about our candy consumption, but in order to feel sexy in our Halloween costume we had to find a way to balance out all the chemicals, food dyes, and fake sugars that we've been putting into our bodies. Our solution is to make sure that everything else we eat between now and Election Day is as pure, organic and healthy as possible. No, we don't want you to be stuck snacking on baby carrots and pretending to be drunk off of EmergenC at this weekend's parties, but we do want you to make smart choices to balance out the truly scary stuff and keep yourself reasonably healthy during this particularly unhealthy time of year. Here are a few tips.
1.Salad for Breakfast
When there are orange frosted donut holes at every meeting and sour apple martinis at Halloween happy hours, sometimes you have to get your greens in right along with your morning coffee. We know that it doesn't sound very appetizing to toss a giant spinach salad at seven a.m., but if you start your day with a pound (give or take) of organic spinach scrambled with two eggs and a half cup of shredded cheese on organic Ezekiel toast, even bobbing for apples with someone who has mono won't spook your immune system.
2.Organic on the Rocks
You'll get just as buzzed and feel so much better if you swap your artificially flavored liqueurs for organic alcohol this Halloween. We recently discovered a brand of tequila called Real de Mexico Tequila that has a completely organic production process. It is super smooth straight and delicious in their signature drink called, "The Real Mexican," which contains fresh pineapple juice and chunks, cilantro and jalapeños. Become their friend on Facebook and let this drink frighten the heck out of your taste buds (in a good way). Another great option is Stolichnaya's Elit vodka, which is triple-filtered to remove impurities and is perfect mixed with orange and grapefruit juices. Vitamin C was never so sinful or much fun! Now, don't forget that drinking organic alcohol will not prevent you from going home with a stranger or getting a DUI, so please be safe, but you do get brownie points for at least trying to make your toxins less toxic.
3.Movie Night Munchies
Save the Halloween goodies for when it's time to party and don't give in to your craving for fake buttery popcorn or chips that are drowned in canned cheese when you're curled up on the couch watching scary movies. Your mood, your body and even the movie will all seem better if you clear the nonsense off your coffee table and snack on something healthy, instead. We tend to eat more when our inhibitions are low, like when we're going through a break-up or watching people's skin fall off, so don't let your fear and adrenaline tempt you into eating your whole house. Try dipping pita chips or veggies into delicious and super easy homemade hummus. Throw a can of chick peas, two tablespoons of lemon juice, three cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of sesame tahini into a blender and you've got a yummy snack that won't scare away your skinny jeans.
4 - Pump up the Pumpkin
If you want to get into the Halloween theme without mainlining sugar, try adding pumpkin to your favorite recipes. Pumpkins are high in carotenoids, which neutralize free radicals, and lutein, which is good for your baby blue eyes. You can roast pumpkin in the oven very simply with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, toast the pumpkin's seeds in the oven and snack on them at work, or even make pumpkin hummus by adding a cup of cooked pumpkin (or the canned kind) and a half teaspoon of cinnamon to the hummus recipe above. Get creative with pumpkin even after the carving contest is over and you'll feel a lot less guilty when your plastic pumpkin that was once overflowing with candy is empty.