A halloween without Hershey's?

Chin up, fellow health nut. It's unlikely you'll find many of any Dancing Stars Chunks of Energy being given out this Halloween. Despite all the gains we've made, Oct 31, still belongs to our sugar-craving, pagan-loving children.

I'll admit, I use to be one of them. If someone tried pulling an apple, raisins, or anything remotely healthy on me, it would probably find its way to the wastebasket. Even a cookie or other homemade treat would likely be tossed. After all, didn't we need to worry about some scary mom putting razor blades in her food? I put my faith in the US confectionery industry. My favorites: Reeses peanut butter cups, Snickers, and Almond Joy. Special kindness was given to families that gave me more than one piece.

Now a halloween veteran, I must admit my tastes have changed. I find these conventional, mass produced sweets to be too sweet. I find the good stuff to be that which doesn't come in a wrapper. My Dancing Star chunks, for example, can be found in the bulk bin section at most natural foods stores. My favorites at the Park Slope Food Co-op are the Chocolate Almond Chip flavor and the Raw Goji Berry Cacao ones. The later is sweetened by dates, so you won't miss the sugar.

It might not be green Kool Aid, but I imagine your kids will love them too.

Why settle for mockolate, when you can have chocolate?

Attention: this is real chocolate. Hershey's, our legendary American chocolate maker, it seems is no longer in the business of selling the real stuff.

Last week, the Today show reported that Hershey's decided to switch the formulation of many of its products. Out is the cocoa butter, arguably what gives chocolate its definitive taste, with lower-cost vegetable oil. The result is a product that many claim is inferior, unless you are one of those people who likes white chocolate.

Instead of joining the chorus of naysayers. I'd like to point out there are still lots of great 'real' chocolate on the market today. And when I say real, I'm talking about the dark stuff, 68% cacao or higher. With these products you should notice "chocolate liquor" "cacao" or "cocoa" as the first ingredient. It should not be sugar.

I'm a big fan of the products made by Equal Exchange and Divine. These companies are purists, and use only organic, fair-trade cacao. You won't find any hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup here.

And what about the saturated fat you might say? Well, according to Dr. Andrew Weil, "Cocoa butter, the fat in chocolate, turns out not to be so bad. Although it is a saturated fat, the body turns it into monounsaturated fat, processing it like olive oil."

So have you forgotten about your Whatchamacallit yet? I recommend Equal Exchange's Dark Chocolate with Pure Cocoa Nibs (pictured).