Possibly the World's Best Trail Mix

Next time you are making preparations to head for the great outdoors, make it a family affair to mix and package your own nutritious and energizing trail mix for your journey. If you find that anyone in your clan has an allergy to any one of the ingredients listed below, simple adjust the ingredients accordingly; select non-allergic alternative(s).

 

Here is Prevention Magazine's The World's Best Trail Mix:

Our exotic blend is low in calories, helps energize, and curbs hunger. Try this trail mix recipe for a delicious and healthy snack.

1. Dried Cherries (1/4 cup)
Picked from orchards in the Great Lakes region, cherries have twice as many antioxidants as red grapes and may help fight arthritis.
Try: Welch's Dried Cherries; supermarkets

2. Brazil Nuts (6 nuts, halved)
The seed of a giant South American Amazon tree, each "nut" contains 10 times the recommended intake of selenium, a mineral with heart-helping antioxidants.
Try: Whole Foods Market Raw Brazil Nuts; Whole Foods stores

3. Dried Yacon (1/4 cup)
This Peruvian-grown vegetable looks and tastes like a dried Granny Smith apple. It's high in cancer-fighting flavonoids and digestion-promoting chlorogenic acid.
Try: Navitas Naturals Raw Dried Yacon Slices; Whole Foods and Vitamin Shoppe stores

4. Dried Goji Berries (1/4 cup)
This tart Chinese fruit (think cranberry meets green tea) provides 18 amino acids, which help maintain and repair body cells.
Try: Woodstock Farms Natural Goji Berries; grocery and health food stores

5. Cacao Nibs (1/4 cup)
Grown in the rain forests of Ecuador and Peru, this raw chocolate has up to four times the flavonoids of more processed varieties, helping to lower blood pressure. Chocolate-covered nibs are sweeter.
Try: Natural Zing Raw Organic Cacao Nibs; naturalzing.com; Dagoba Organic Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs; select health food stores

6. Jungle Peanuts (1/4 cup)
From the Ecuadorian Amazon, these soft and meaty nuts are a good source of oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat recently linked to cancer prevention.
Try: Sunfood Nutrition Organic Wild Amazonian Jungle Peanuts; sunfood.com

Trail mix recipe nutritional info per 1/4 cup (makes 6 servings): 146 cal, 3 g pro, 17 g carb, 7.5 g fat, 1 g sat fat, 0 mg chol, 3 g fiber, 14 mg sodium
 

Since I am not always able to find all the above-mentioned ingredients like Cacao Nibs, Jungle Peanuts and Yacon, I create a similar mixture of nuts and dried fruits, which can include any or all of the following: apple-sweetened cranberries, organic dried apples, banana chips, apricots, raw cashews, almonds, pecans, dark chocolate.... I bag individual portions to carry baggies of them in my car for energy snacks in between meals and to take along on walks.

What do you put in your family's favorite trail mix?