Many towns and neighborhoods have their own spooky urban legends — the house everyone swears is haunted or the mysterious old man rumored to have once been a gangster. Stonewood Road, the brick rowhouse-lined Northwood street I grew up on, was party to a particularly vexing Halloween horror: the night of the Sun-Maid raisins. And the call was coming from inside the house.

My house.

In the late 1970s, my parents were sticklers for a healthy diet. We had no red meat, ate carob instead of chocolate and used that janky natural peanut butter, thick enough to be substituted for grout, that you could get only at food co-ops. They decided one year that they could not in good conscience hand out the typical sugary Halloween treats to the impressionable neighborhood kids. Instead, they offered little individual boxes of raisins. They were bite size, right? Sweet? It’s nature’s candy!

“Hey,” some neighborhood friends said to me and my twin sister on the morning of Nov. 1. “We like your parents. But can you tell them to never, ever hand out raisins? Like, ever again?”

From that moment on, I was lousy with the shame of being the house that hands out the bad trick-or-treat offerings. That generally includes fruit or no-name candy — N&Ns? Snockers? — or nonfood options such as tiny toothbrushes and religious tracts. I understand the logic of not wanting to contribute to the dental downfall of unsuspecting children or participate in pastimes you find spiritually problematic. Just know that the costumed populace probably won’t be enthusiastic about your convictions.

The food website Eater recently interviewed trick-or-treat experts, also known as children, about what they most like and dislike seeing in their buckets and bags. The findings weren’t surprising: Reese’s Cups and full-size candy bars got a big thumbs-up, and they disliked toothbrushes, raisins (sigh) and dental floss. “No one wants healthy stuff,” an 8-year-old named Elena said.

So much pressure from tiny freeloaders demanding treats! Last year, I admit I forgot to purchase Halloween booty before Oct. 30, so we were left with the dregs like bubble gum and the aforementioned generic loot. This time, we did our shopping a week early, though I maintain it’s possible to veer too far in the other direction. Full-size Snickers for everyone is a weird flex, Scrooge McDuck. Who can afford that?

My friend Naomi Singer was, like me, raised in a junk-averse household. Her mother worked in public health, watched her weight and “didn’t want a lot of 3 Musketeers lying around.” The solution? Giving out air-popped popcorn in “those bags with the little flaps, before Ziploc, that didn’t really close,” Singer said. “I remember helping her bag it and saying, ‘Yeah, nobody really wants this.’”

To add insult to injury, the Singers’ Mount Washington home was up a ways off the street. “I remember opening the door of this house you had to walk up to, to make an effort to get up there, and the kids were like, ‘Oh, thanks. There’s no candy,’” she said. “It was a failed experiment in the diversification of treats. It was more of a trick. We gave out candy after that.”

Baltimore native Amy Lewis, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, grew up with budget-conscious parents in Dickeyville, which was an affluent area bordering more humble homes. Lewis said her family was “pretty poor” but bought a larger fixer-upper and worked hard to afford to give out treats. “There was a larger apartment community full of kids who would come down, well over 100 kids. So I know we always got the cheap candy. I’m sure it’s like, ‘Eww, I don’t want to eat this candy.’ But that’s the candy you’re gonna get,” she said.

Like Singer and I, Lewis was raised to be a healthy eater. “We didn’t have sugar for the rest of the year except for the honey we harvested from our bees. It was a big deal to get sugar,” Lewis said. “When food is hard to come by most of the year, to give out candy was a purely joyful experience, intentional.” And that’s how she approaches trick-or-treating, now on the other side of the door with her husband. “It’s the little luxuries.”

Singer now lives in a building in Brooklyn, New York, that doesn’t get trick-or-treaters, but she admitted she struggles with what she’d hand out if there were little costumed cuties at her door. “I am torn. Can I get with whatever healthier versions there are? Organic lollipops?”

As the former resident of the raisin house, I’ve felt torn about not giving healthier options while simultaneously absolutely not wanting to disappoint the kids knocking on my door (as well as the parents who will be raiding the candy bags when the kids go to sleep). And, let’s be honest, if there aren’t any Reese’s Cups for me to freeze, pretending I’m going to wait to eat them, what even is Halloween?

Look, giving out candy is voluntary and no one has the right to egg your house because they don’t like the brand of nougat-based products you gave them. Not even if you give out toothbrushes. But, if you don’t want to give out stuff people are going to like, the better option is to turn off your porch light and pretend you’re not home, lest the scarlet “R” for raisins become attached to you.