The Trail Mix Experiment

Now that I am finished with my hours in the clinic, I have time to do things like go to Enrichment. Sort of. For Enrichment, they asked us to make a healthy recipe and bring it to share. Not having a ton of time to make a recipe, and needing to make something that I could leave in my car all day while I was at school, I picked trail mix.

I know what you're thinking: what more is there to making trail mix than opening a few cans of nuts and bags of raisins? Nothing. That was the best part.

I decided to make the trail mix I like from Trader Joe's, which is superior to the kind I grew up with, that was mostly peanuts and raisins, with a tiny handful of M&M knockoffs. Lubbock does not have a Trader Joe's, which should not be surprising to anyone. However, Wal-Mart makes a very similar product. No, I didn't cheat with the Wal-Mart stuff, but it did give me an idea.

Inspired by cockeyed.com, I decided to see if I could make the trail mix cheaper than I could buy it at Wal-Mart. Here was the breakdown of items and prices, so you can make your own trail mix at home. Mine is the one on the left.

Wal-Mart Trail Mix-$4.98/20 oz.

My trail mix:

dried cranberries-$1.32/6 oz.

golden raisins-$2.08/15 oz.

white chocolate chips-$2.42/11 oz.

peanut butter/milk chocolate chips-$2.14/12 oz.

almonds-$5.98/16 oz. 

cashews-$3.08/10 oz.

peanuts-$2.28/16 oz.

total weight: 86 oz.

total cost: $20.20

If I did the math right on my cell phone, that works out to $.235/oz. for my trail mix, as compared to $.249/oz. for the Wal-Mart trail mix. 

So, while I can conclude that, per ounce, mine was cheaper, I also realize the following things:

• $20 is a lot to spend on trail mix to save a cent and a half.
  
• I probably won't have many more occasions where I want or need a giant mixing bowl full of trail mix.
• Mine had more almonds than the Wal-Mart brand (cheapskates), which means I probably could have made it more cheaply if I could have found a smaller container of almonds.
• Given that it has three different kinds of baking chips, it's probably not really that healthy.
• I probably could have done the analysis without buying the Wal-Mart trail mix.

I would actually like to rebut that last point because when I took my trail mix to Enrichment, it was a big hit, and the girls there either ate it or took it home in baggies, leaving me with just a handful of almonds and a few golden raisins. So, it turned out to be a good thing that I had an extra bag at home, as well as a bad thing. You see, the other thing I have learned from the trail mix experiment is that I probably don't have enough fiber in my diet, given what all that dried fruit did to my digestive system.