The Healthiest Healthy Trail Mix

Your friends have invited you to go hiking in the mountains of Colorado for a weekend trip. For a weekend trip into the mountains, lugging your own gear, you know that a Healthy Trail Mix was going to be a necessity. You know that salt causes dehydration which is going to slow you down; sugar creates an energy rush, but quickly brings you crashing down. So you ask yourself how to create your own, healthy trail mix that will stand up to a weekend in the mountains?

You know you want a nut and seed base for your trail mix, as that is where you will be getting your primary protein while hiking, and a few other essentials. They are a low fat protein, and will keep you going strong. You also want a good amount of fruit for that extra burst of sweet. Dehydrated fruit tends to have a lot of salt and sugar too, so you will have to watch that. You also realized that you wanted about a 2 to 1 ratio of nuts to fruits. So you make your shopping list, and head to your local Health Food shop.

Almonds were your first stop, making sure that they were unsalted. These are a low fat protein with magnesium, Vitamin E, and Vitamin B2. Almonds will be a great base for your GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts).

Traveling to the next aisle, you find Pecans. These are unsalted, just ‘low in salt’ but that’s ok. A little salt will not hurt you, and it will keep the tastes interesting. Besides, it will be enough to coat some of the other nuts and seeds, making those a little more tasty.

Because you love them, unsalted, shelled sunflower seeds were next on the list. Here is your Vitamin E! They are small, but if you eat them slowly with your front teeth, they last just as long as the other seeds and nuts.

Pumpkin Seeds were next to the sunflower seeds, so you decide to pick those up as well. Besides, they are a good source of Iron, and you tend to be a little Anemic when going up too high.

Edamame was next in line, and you explained to the cashier that they were soybeans. She looks around, and hands you an article on eating soy beans explaining that they should be blanched or soaked and hulled before eating them. Good to know! They are another great source of protein and essential oils, and I want to make sure they are as healthy as possible!

Next you find the chocolate aisle, and are reaching for the dark chocolate M&Ms; when something else catches your eye.

Cacao Nibs? Antioxidant, Omega 6, Vitamin C, and Seratonin? Why had these never crossed your path before, you wonder… You decide to pull out your blackberry to do some quick research, and find out that this stuff is a super food! You always knew Chocolate was good!

What good is GORP without Raisins, you ask yourself? And so pick up a bag of unsweetened golden raisins for the color. You check the nutritional information on raisins, and put them right back, acknowledging the fact that your GORP will have no Raisins or Peanuts in it. What sacrifices you make for finding a Healthy Trail Mix!

Ok, so since your primary fruit is off of the list, whatever will you do for the rest of your fruits? You realize that whatever you get will be high in sugar,

Unsweetened Coconut, shredded, will do nicely along with a smattering of pineapple and Cherries. But as you are ending the dried fruit aisle, you see something called Goji Berries. Curious, and vaguely sounding like something from Dragonball Z, you skip to the Goji Berry fruit on Wikipedia. If you think you’ve found the mother load with your Cacao Nibs, Goji berries take the cake! (Or keep the cake out, anyway!) Wikipedia attributes minerals, amino acids, vitamins, calcium, potassium, and vitamin C in these suckers.

You couldn’t resist, so you grabbed a bag, paid for your purchase, and went home, confident in your trail mix success.

When you got home, you mixed everything in a large mixing bowl, and began to stir. You wanted to stir this mix very well to not only get a good amount of everything in every bag, but also to spread some of the salt around from the ‘low salt’ Pecans.

All in all, your recipe consisted of:

1 cup of Pecans
1 cup of Almonds
1 cup of Cacao Nibs
1 cup of Sunflower Seeds
1 cup of Pumpkin Seeds
1 cup of soaked, deshelled, and dehusked Edamame thoroughly dried
½ cup of Coconut
½ cup Pineapple
1 cup Cherries
1 cup Goji Berries

This mix gave you a 2 to 1 ratio. Your GORP had no Raisins and no Peanuts, but it was definitely a Healthy Trail Mix.