andy is the best part about Halloween for most kids, big and small, but it can be difficult to eat in moderation when that bag full of goodies comes through the door. It's even more difficult to maintain your resolve when the Halloween treats show up in September and are still hanging around through November. Halloween is potentially a three-month-long battle of sweet temptations versus strategy and resolve. Don't get spooked by the prospect of shunning all sweets; if you're committed to moderating your intake of sweets, then there are a number of tricks you can use to make Halloween a healthy treat:

• Halloween candy can be a big temptation at work around this time of year. If you're enticed too often, don't keep any at your desk and try to avoid walking past any of the public candy bowls. Make sure to plan your meals and snacks so you don't get a snack attack and resort to eating candy.

• Avoid contact with your "trigger treats" for as long as possible. That means don't bring your favorite candy into your house until you absolutely have to.

• If you find that you're craving candy, it's easy to understand why: you're being too strict with yourself. Denying yourself something that you want will only make you want it more, which can set you up for a candy binge. Plan out your indulgences to avoid overindulging. Allow yourself to have your favorite item on a certain day of the week so you can look forward to your treat without having candy on the brain all week.

• Understand that you're not craving candy because you're deficient in some nutrient; you're craving it because you associate it with an emotionally positive social event that you have experienced in your past (i.e. Halloweens from your childhood).

• Portion control is always the best strategy when you can't or don't want to avoid eating a high-calorie food. In addition to planning a day of the week that you will eat your treat, plan how much you will eat before that day arrives.

• Toast the pumpkin seeds from your Jack-O-Lantern and eat them as a snack or sprinkle them on salads.

• Sugar pumpkins (pumpkins that weigh less than five pounds) are an excellent source of beta-carotene and work great in soups, stews, muffins and breads.

• Canned unsweetened pumpkin is almost as nutritious as raw pumpkin, but may have a few more calories. Use it to replace some fat in muffin, bread, and cake recipes.

• Try my low-fat recipe for Pumpkin Seed Cupcakes.

• If you want to hand out healthier goodies to your trick-or-treaters, try Sun-Maid raisins mini snack-size boxes, Dove dark chocolate Promises, Tropicana Fruit Strips, Stretch Island Fruit Leather, fresh baby Gala apples, Grimmway Farms baby carrot snack packs, O'Coco's organic baked chocolate crisps, Umeya fortune cookies, Santa Cruz Organic apple-cinnamon apple sauce snack packs, Hansen's Junior Juice packs, or Arrowhead water half pints.

• There's some evidence that kids prefer toys to candy, so consider offering stickers, rings, and little plastic insects and goblins instead of edible treats.

• Avoid letting kids eat all of their booty in one sitting-allow everyone 2-3 pieces of candy per day for up to one week and then get rid of the rest.

• To help with portion control, try to eat candy after a meal, rather than between meals.

• Remember to brush your teeth after eating candy to remove sticky sugar and help prevent cavities.

Sticking with your healthful eating plan on Halloween, or any holiday, all comes down to planning. You know the temptations are going to be there, so devise your strategy in advance—it'll be good practice, with Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas just around the corner!