Take it from someone who's been there, pouring seven pounds of M&Ms into a trash bag is far more satisfying than you may already suspect.
Follow that up with pounds of nuts and dried fruit, and you have yourself the ultimate bag of layered trail mix ingredients. You have now arrived at the far less fun (and quite dangerous) mixing stage.
Unfortunately, the trash bag I selected as the vessel for conducting said trail mix experiment was not designed to handle almost 23 pounds of snacks, and I now risked having a trail mix party all over my floor.
Very carefully I caressed the bag's contents as they slowly melded together into the ultimate trail mix. Greatness has been achieved.
WHAT'S IN IT?
The trash bag trail mix method offers you flexibility, and the chance to create something that you can not only enjoy, but also be proud of (after all, you are going to be stuck eating this stuff for quite some time – so you had better make sure it's masterfully crafted).
My personal mix (aka the best mix) contains the following ingredients:
- 5 pounds of raisins
- 7 pounds of M&Ms
- 3 pounds of dried blueberries
- 3.25 pounds of peanuts
- 2.5 pounds of dry roasted almonds
- 2 pounds of pine nuts
After packaging everything into quart-sized Ziplocs, I had a total of 10.5 bags – it really looked like so much more.
As it stands now I am anticipating eight mail drop resupplies. I fear that one bag per box (two for the long stretches) will not be enough, but perhaps (hopefully) after hashing out the rest of my resupply contents one bag will be exactly what I need.
Shit's getting serious.
Peanut M&Ms with a separate bag of “savory” chex mix — I home make it since I am not certain Chex mix is as fortified as actual Rice Chex with nuts (macadamia has the most fat) and ground up barbecue potato chips (adds fat & flavor) with extra garlic, onion powder, & seasoning added. To each his or her own, but I need occasional variety even for 7-10 day strolls.
Hey there, question for ya. How did these bags work out for you? Did you need more than originally packed? Also, I don’t eat straight-up sugar. Like pop, candy bars, candy, etc. I eat fruit and stuff. What would be a good substitute for all that sugar that I could be munching on for the trip?
The bags worked out great and I was always happy to receive one. They even ended up being too much between certain resupplies.
As far as a substitute for sugar? More sugar?
Pre-JMT, I was much in the same vein as The BarbAaron. I had nutrition bars, gels, I’d calculated rations, home-dried fruit, had run all the numbers. From Day 2 onward I wanted none of it, made me sick to think of eating – metabolic changes had rendered nutritionally complex foods totally unpalatable during the day.
What I _did_ want was to eat one peanut M&M, every ten seconds, forever.
Future ‘day-foods’ will consist solely of trail mix variants and assortedly-shaped, unnaturally-colored corn syrup hunks, with the odd chunk of summer sausage thrown in for some of that sweet sweet fat.
Always more M&Ms.