This Is What A Teal Pumpkin On Your Porch Means?

When I was young, I didn't know anybody that had a significant food allergy. None of my friends had any and I didn't know what "gluten-free" meant. I'm not even positive that there was such a thing as gluten-free.

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Fast forward to today and we all know somebody that has a food allergy. Many of my daughter's friends have an allergy of some kind. I've also noticed that when I go to a restaurant, more and more servers ask if anyone at the table has a food allergy that they should know about.

I found out that nearly 90 million Americans (that's almost one in three) are impacted by food allergies with over 30 million having a potentially life-threatening condition. The stats are even worse for kids with 1 in 13 children living with food allergies.

We could discuss the reasons behind it all but I'll leave that for a story for another day. It's here and it's not going away any time soon. This has to make it difficult when Halloween rolls around and it's time for trick or treating.

That's where the Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) is coming to the rescue to make Halloween safer for kids with food allergies. Because the only thing that should be scary about Halloween is the costumes that they are wearing.

What Is The Teal Pumpkin Project

FARE has come up with the "Teal Pumpkin Project" to help the kids have a safe and fun night. Grab a couple of your pumpkins and paint them teal and put them on your porch.

This will let kids with food allergies know that you have non-food items available as a treat too. Here are some of the ideas that FARE and the Teal Pumpkin Project have made available.

It's a simple act but it means so much as you turn your town teal. It's also not a bad idea to get a teal or even a blue pumpkin Halloween bucket if your child has a food allergy.

LOOK: How Halloween has changed in the past 100 years

Stacker compiled a list of ways that Halloween has changed over the last 100 years, from how we celebrate it on the day to the costumes we wear trick-or-treating. We’ve included events, inventions, and trends that changed the ways that Halloween was celebrated over time. Many of these traditions were phased out over time. But just like fake blood in a carpet, every bit of Halloween’s history left an impression we can see traces of today.