What's the scariest thing about Halloween? Is it goblins, ghosts or lots of pint-size Miley Cyruses running around?

Well, yes, indeed, to the Miley thing. But this being a rhetorical question, the official answer is: No. The scariest thing is candy. Parents are terrified of it. They want it out of their homes almost as soon as it dances through the door, and they have come up with elaborate ways to make it disappear.

Take, for instance, the "switch witch." This is a gal whose job it is to take away the child's candy and replace it with a trinket or toy. If this sounds suspiciously like the tooth fairy, you must be an intellectual property lawyer. Granted, the two ladies do have some things in common. But because the switch witch is not giving money and because she wants the kids to keep their teeth as long as possible, there are loopholes.

The other difference is that the switch witch has been around for only a short time, invented as one solution to the "problem" of too much booty. But there are a lot of other inventive solutions, as well. For instance, Tracy Bagatelle-Black, a mom of two in Los Angeles, has become a Halloween recycler. She socks away the candy her kids get one year and gives it out the next. (I just hope the trick-or-treaters at her house like their candy bars crumbly!)

Another recycling tactic is this: More than 2,000 dentists now participate in candy buybacks, wherein they give kids a bit of money (not to be confused with a Bit-O-Honey!) for their stashes. They then send the candy to service members overseas. In turn, those service members give it out to the local kids, whose parents are not, as far as we know, freaking out about too much candy, probably because they've got better things to freak out about.

Back home, the other candy solutions tend to be more traditional. Robin Gorman Newman, the blogger behind MotherhoodLater.com, employs a double-barreled strategy of immediately tossing out her son's worst cavity-creators (taffy, Lik-M-Aid) and rationing the rest. Heck, she throws some hiding in there, too. "And finding a hiding place is not easy at this point," she says, "because he knows them all."

There are some parents who also "charge" their kids a certain amount of candy for things such as movie tickets and TV time.

But possibly the best Halloween candy idea I've heard of comes from Dina Rose, whose blog is called "It's Not About Nutrition." (Her upcoming book has an even better title, "It's Not About the Broccoli.") Anyway, instead of worrying about the terrible implications of a bagful of candy, she sees it as a fantastic way to get kids to eat healthful foods. For real. Here's how:

"Most children who are reluctant to eat new foods have a built-in resistance to new foods in general," says Rose, a sociologist turned feeding expert. Picky eaters have been so pushed to try healthful foods that they don't want to try any new foods, period. "This is a perfect opportunity to reverse that mentality and say, 'Let's do some taste testing' — of candy!" Rose says. A kid who discovers he loves Reese's Pieces or Butterfingers has had his mind (and mouth) opened. Cauliflower could conceivably be next.

Just, one hopes, not in his trick-or-treat bag.

Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)" and "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([email protected]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.