Actually according to my cousin who works at a candy factory they x-ray candy now so the chances of metal in a candy bar isn’t as much of a problem. BUT, I don’t think it’s out of line to inspect your kids candy wrappers for tampering or signs of abuse. Just because the world is an odd place doesn’t mean kids can’t be young and do fun things like trick or treating. It’s the job of parents to make sure the kids have thier youth while still being protected. Not so much to ask if you think about it. How hard is it to dump out the candy and spread it to inspect it? Takes about ten minutes and then the kids can chow down on candy and ping off the walls with sugar rushes til dawn.
Yes, I did.
I checked it for Hershey’s Kisses and Baby Ruths. 
Actually I always check over their candy and we toss anything that’s opened or torn.
I do it while they’re in the bathtub. So I can swipe the Kisses and Baby Ruths
Again, I don’t care if parents check (for the record: mine never did), but what I’m asking is:
If you feel there is a significant enough risk to look, aren’t you concerned that there is a significant enough risk that you’ll look and miss it?
I guess my question is: by looking, do you feel you are significantly reducing the risk to your child, or, like many of our post-9/11 security efforts, is it just something to make you feel better about the risk?
I want to be clear, though, that I am not denigrating parents who do check.
I check, but not really to see if individual candies have been tampered with.I toss anything that’s unwrapped (not common anymore)-more for reasons of staleness or because it looks homemade- not fear of deliberate poisoning or tampering (I’ve seen some really bad kitchens in my life-some people don’t refrigerate milk and butter) and I used to pull out the hard candy when the kids were little.
I checked. Not because of the events of September 11th, though. It’s just a good idea to check. You never know what could have accidentally gotten in there, like the metal shavings that MamaHen found.
Not only do I check it, I pull out out all of the Coffee Crisp and Tootsie Rolls.
I’ve never found anything bad, ever. When when I was a child, my parents would always check, and never anything wrong then, either. Except those halloween kisses. Those are just wrong, man!
Actually I have always checked my kids candy. Yes I do feel like it’s safer if I check it first. I actually found a piece last year that someone had sampled then wrapped back up, I think it was probably a kid sneaking candy but it wasn’t something I would be thrilled for my kids to eat. If it’s been tampered with, I throw it out, if it’s not store bought, out it goes. I don’t know how other people cook or if they are clean so I don’t risk it.
Thanks for all your responses. I just couldn’t believe it when my wife said she wasn’t planning on checking it out.
obfusciatrist, I don’t check it just to make me feel better about the risk, and it is not a post 9/11 thing. My parents always checked my candy when I was a kid, (some 20 years ago) and I feel it’s a good thing to do with my kids today.
We used 2 separate bags.
One from the people we knew, and the one for the strangers.
He only got to eat the know them bag.
He got 150 all together.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to not go to stranger’s houses? If nothing else, ya don’t have to lug an extra bag of candy around (not to mention the waste of the stranger’s candy).
Sua
God, I don’t seem to be able to speak clearly. I didn’t mean to say that your checking of candy was a post-9/11 measure, just that perhaps it was a relatively ineffective measure that makes you feel better anyway, much like some of the things that have been done at 9/11 (the bag searches they are doing at Disneyland aren’t going to keep anything dangerous out, but people seem to feel better anyway).
But you’ve changed my mind about checking. I agree that that it makes sense to remove non-packaged foods because you don’t know the conditions of preparation. Accidental food poisoning is something I could see as a reasonable concern; though I don’t think I would really look that hard for tampering. But the point is moot, I don’t/won’t have kids, and if I did, they wouldn’t trick-or-treat. I hated it when I was a kid, I’m not going to subject them to it.
I checked the bags, but didn’t expect to find anything suspicious. I mostly go through and take out the stuff I consider “choke-able” for my littlest. Gum, Tootsie Rolls, hard caramels, hard candy balls, stuff like that.
Sheri
Since I was new to my area and didn’t really know my neighbors that well, I checked. I think now a days we as parents check because we were probably brought up that way… checking candy in my house is practically a tradition, besides then i can count just how many peanut butter cups there are and how I can put them in mom’s “uncertain” pile without them knowing… this year they wised up and as soon as all the candy was checked and put in the treats bowl they promptly pointed out my favorites and assured me I could have all of the ones that had the chocolate and peanut butter in it… I have raised my children well…
It’s been several years, since the last two went “trick or treating”, but as far back as the 60’s when our first son went out, we checked. It was never lets check to see what those bad people have put in the candy. We’d say lets see what you got. That was how it was handled and it was a way for the kids to wind down from running around. As to jarbabyj’s father checking out 12 pieces, that sometimes was done as a joke, but all of my kids would freely offer to share with us.
Yup. My family has been doing it since one of my sisters gott an apple with toothpicks hidden inside. That was 30-odd years ago, and I’m not breaking the tradition.
So what exactly do you guys check them for, other than unwrapped candies, or is that all? If there are razor blades or pins inside, will you really find them? Just asking…
For the record, my parents never checked mine. Hmm…wonder if they were trying to sabotage me as a kid? 
Well, sad to say, but homemade treats, save by someone you know personally and well, are right out. Ditto fruit. Recently a coworker’s kid had to go to the hospital for stitches when he bit into a razor conceiled in a popcorn ball. One of my older sisters found the toothpicks in my younger sister’s apple. There were tiny brown spots on the apple, and when one was cut away, the first toothpick was found. For wrapped candy: Cut or torn wrappers, unsealled wrappers, and wrappers that have been re-sealed. Damaged wrappers doesn’t equal bad intent, but usually means stale candy, and it’s not worth it. Resealed wrappers are suspicious as all hell. On candy with clear wrappers, I also look for water spots and discoloration. Pinholes are something else to be wary of.
Out of deferance to parent’s concerns, my family gives out nickles instead of candy.
I check, but like many of the parents here, I just check for the good stuff. I have to do a random sampling just to make sure the stuff is quality. Obviously, if I noticed a tampered package, I’d ditch it, but I haven’t had any problems in the 10 years I’ve had kids out trick or treating.
I checked for Mary Janes and butterscotch candies. Both are poisonous tasting.
No offense, but back in my day, anyone who gave out pennies or nickles was the lamest of the lame. Or maybe the second lamest of the lame because…
Back when I was a tyke and we in suburbia first started hearing about all this stuff en masse (in the 80’s), there was a guy down the street who opened his door rather apologetically and proceeded to dump into my bag a handful of… unshelled nuts. Gee, thanks Mister, a Brazil nut, three walnuts and a couple of pecans. He said it was because of the threat of poisoned candy, but personally I’d have rather taken my chances with the poison. Ok, Actually, he’s second lamest and the spare change is third lamest with the grand prize going to the people who’d tape some tract to their door about how Halloween was a Satanic holiday as if they were Martin Luther at the Cathedral.
Really? Go back to Russia, you communist! Actually, I didn’t know any kids hated the holiday, but to each their own. Hopefully, you’d let them do it if they wanted to, though.
For the record, I didn’t check my son’s candy, but it all came either from his sitter or from Micky Mouse & Co. (we went to Disneyworld last week and did the special Halloween celebration there which included trick or treating) so I feel pretty safe with it. Oh, and Ob, let me tell you that the bag searches at Disneyworld wouldn’t keep out a nuclear warhead, much less a smaller weapon (as I already ranted about in GQ in the Fastpass thread).