Once Upon a Halloween

A Halloween Experiment

I know, I know, Halloween is in the past. I hope every ones Halloween was filled with lots of fun, candy, or maybe some other snacks… I say this because this Halloween, I decided to do an experiment to see what Trick or Treaters treat preference was when they had a choice. I provided three different choices of treats and simply asked the kids to pick which one they wanted. The options were candy (KitKats, Peanut M&M’s or Regular M&M’s), Pretzels or Cheetos. I put the candy in one bowl and the Pretzels and Cheetos into a different bowl. I stopped keeping track of what kids were picking after we ran out of one of the choices to keep it accurate. My prediction was that most kids would pick candy and we would have a lot of left over Pretzels and Cheetos. Here’s what I found…

The Results

-36 picked candy

-21 picked Pretzels

-25 picked Cheetos

These numbers shocked me because if you combine the numbers for Pretzels and Cheetos, those snacks outweigh candy 46-36! This surprised me because I feel like there is a perception that kids want candy, and don’t want the other snacks. A lot of kids ran back to their parents saying how excited they were to get Pretzels or Cheetos. Also, a lot of parents responded saying “That’s great! You can put it in your lunch!”

I was also interested to see if gender had an impact on what kids picked. I found that most boys (23) wanted candy and most girls (20) wanted Cheetos.

My Thoughts Now

I think that kids get so much candy on Halloween. When my siblings and I used to go Trick or Treating, we got so much candy that after a while, we had to throw a lot of it out because there was just no way that we could eat it all. I think getting snacks like Pretzels and Cheetos is a good idea because parents and kids both love it. Parents can use them in their kids lunches and kids get excited about getting something different. After doing this experiment, I learned that my original thoughts were wrong. Kids actually do like getting different snacks on Halloween, and these snacks are much less likely to go to waste.

Thank you so much for reading this blog! Also a huge huge huge thank you to my Dad who helped me out with this blog and helped me with the research. There is no way this blog would’ve made it online without you. If you liked this blog, subscribe to get emails when I post a new blog, follow me on Instagram (@signedashlyn) and share with anyone you think would enjoy as well! As always, thank you for your ongoing support!

Signed,

Ashlyn