Kids these days don’t know how great they’ve got it. When I was still of trick-or-treating age back in the dark ages, the array of handouts we received on Halloween night was nowhere near as wide or as appealing as it is now. Not that there weren’t some pretty nice highlights—bite-size candy bars and Twizzlers among them—but there were a lot of duds that hardly made putting a costume on and hitting the pavement worthwhile.

What’s more, if you (like a few of my grade-school friends) had to worry about dietary-restricting health issues like diabetes, the cornucopia of sugar-laden items had next nothing for you to offer, making the Halloween holiday a lot sadder than it should have been. Even if you were getting handfuls of pennies from the weird old lady down the street each year, they didn’t add up to enough money to buy you a decent amount of treats that you could eat. You were similarly up a creek if you had parents who fervently believed kids should avoid sugar like the plague—they would either severely restrict the candy you consumed or toss it all in the bin. And oh, the shame if word got out that you lived in the house that gave out raisins.

Fast forward to today, where candy and snack manufacturers are giving a frighteningly long list of options that puts the trick or treat offerings of yesteryear to shame. In addition to longtime favorite sweet treats, producers now offer a range of savory snacks and better-for-you offerings that even health-conscious parents won’t find scary. That’s It, for example, offers its Spooky Fruit Bites, which features 40 fun-size no-sugar-added fruit bars (half banana, half mango) in a festive pack. Hershey’s SkinnyPop savory snack brand sells its vegan, non-GMO popcorn in a 12-bag pack, complete with friendly monsters on the front. Also, chickpea snack maker Hippeas recently launched a limited-edition multipack of its Vegan White Cheddar Puffs, with spooky ghosts adorning the 12-count bag.

Of course, there is still a very wide range of traditional sugary sweets to choose from when shopping for eats to hand out to the trick-or-treating youngsters that stop by your door on October 31. Candy is not going away anytime soon—I’ll probably offer a mix of BFY snacks and candy when I dispense candy to the neighborhood youngsters (I’ll likely dress up, too). However, for those looking for better-for-you options, innovative producers have continued to come up with so many alternatives to sugar-filled treats, it’s scary. SF&WB