HALLOWEEN!! TRICK OR TREAT TRIVIA FOR YOU AND ME!!!

   On this costume filled, candy gorging out of your minds holiday, chances are there are a few things you don't know, so here are some things you may or may not know about everybodys favorite trick or treat'n holiday.

• When it comes to candy sales, Halloween makes stores jump for joy (especially in their pocket books).  According to the National Confectioners Association, giving and eating candy during major holidays accounts for about a third of all confections sold annually.
• Candy is keeping retailers and dentists happy. In 2002, each person in the U.S. consumed approximately 24 pounds of candy.
• Census researchers report that 1,040 manufacturers in 2001 produced $12 billion dollars worth of chocolate and cocoa.
• Another 616  candy manufacturers made non-chocolate candy that year.
• Candy corn is a big portion of those treats made annually. (I don't know why it must be like giving people fruit cake at Christmastime) In fact, October 30th is National Candy Corn Day.
• There are 106 million potential houses for the kids to go trick-or-treating to.
• Older kids prefer chocolate more so than younger ones. ( Also throwing eggs, t.p. ing, and kicking over your pumpkin that you slaved all night to carve!)
• The first milk chocolate was created in Switzerland in the 1800's.
• The melting point of cocoa butter is below the body temperature, explaining why it mouth.
• A 1.5 ounce chocolate bar has 15 percent of the daily value for riboflavin.
• According to Bankrate, you should gauge your candy needs by counting the number of 5 to 14 year olds in your neighborhood. ( I can't in mine because most of them seem to get bussed from out of my area!) The article says you should also get some things for the older kids. (So they don't t.p., egg or kick your pumpkin in!!!)
• Halloween, Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day are the biggest candy seller days of the year. (All of them heavily commercialized by big business.)
• Pop rock were introduced by General Foods in 1974.
• The first jack-o-lanterns were made of turnips.
• Pumpkins can come in white, blue and green also.
• Pumpkins are fruits, not vegetables despite what you might think, and 99 percent of pumpkins sold in the U.S. are used to make jack-o-lanterns.
• Trick-or-treating is an Irish tradition where the wealthy would give food to the poor on Halloween night.
• Costume sales are estimated at over $1.5  billion dollars and Americans spend about $50 million on Halloween cards.
• In the north of England, Halloween was called "nut-crack" and "snap-apple night.(Those sure make it  sound like some painful trick-or-treating,  especially for boys and men.)