Trail Mix

I love trail mix!  I eat it on my cereal in the mornings, I eat it by the handful when I'm feeling really hungry & can't get "full", and sometimes, I even eat it while hiking!  But ... I hate buying trail mix premade at the grocery store.  It always seems bland, or full of not so hot ingredients designed to get me to buy it, but not cost anything for them to make it.  Blah!  So, I make my own!

Trail Mix

1 can each:
   Peanuts, Cashews, Almonds, Shelled Pistachios
1 package each:
   Sunflower Seeds, Craisins, Raisins, Pumpkin Seeds

Mix well & store in a convenient place next to the cereals.  This makes enough to last me about two months.

To figure out the calories per serving, I looked on the back of each ingredient & multiplied the serving size by the number of servings; and the number of servings by the calories per serving.  This gave me the number of cups per container and the number of calories per container.  Add all the cups and calories together to get the cups of Mix.  Divide by my new serving size to get the calories per serving of my Mix.  In this case (note that I didn't get the pumpkin seeds this time (*sniff*sniff!!*)

item = serving size x number of servings @ calories per serving = volume in container @ calories per container
Sunflower seeds         1/4C x 5 @190  = 1 1/4C @ 950
Raisins                       1/4C x 5 1/2 @ 130 = 1 3/4 @ 1430
Craisens                     1/3C x 4 @ 130 = 1 1/3 @520
Cashews                    1/4C x 9 @ 160 = 2 1/4 @ 1440
Peanuts                      1/4C x 12 @ 160 = 3C @ 1920
Almonds                    1/4C x 10 @ 170 = 2 1/2C @ 1700
Pistachios                   1/4C x 8 @ 200 = 2C @ 1600

Totals =                                                 14C @ 9560
I made my serving size 1/4C - that's about how much goes on my cereal - so...
1/4C @ 170 calories

NORMALLY, I use my trail mix to go on my morning cereal (I buy plainer cereal, then add my own extras, rather than paying triple the cost for them to do it for me!), but for special occasions, I add lots of extras, candies, dried fruits, etc to make it good for keeping me on my feet on a hike!  When I add candies, I like to add sweets AND sours - it always surprises me how yummy some sour Skittles are when you add to all the sweets and saltys of a good Trail Mix!