A Healthy Trail Mix Recipe for Greener Living Coventry

A Healthy Trail Mix Recipe

Here's a very easy healthy trail mix recipe. This is easy for kids to make and it's a good alternative to the usual commercial snack foods and sweets.

You can use it for energy on the go for kids or adults and you can use it as healthy party snacks (maybe for keeping the real food content of your child's party high!)

You can make great healthy kids snacks for days out, or you can package it up nicely in a jar or presentation box and use it as an unusual gift.

You can also make a gourmet trail mix, or just a simple organic mix for everyday use. The choice is yours!

Quality ingredients from (almost) local producers

Trail mix really is the easiest of healthy snacks. The key element in an healthy trail mix recipe is to use nuts and dried fruits which don't have any artificial additives or added sugar. If you do use sugared dried fruit, use it in moderation only.

It's as well to remember that even healthy foods such as organic trail mix can be indigestible in the wrong proportions, or if mixed with other foods. See for more on organic foods and why we should favour the. See for more about healthy food choices and healthy food mixtures.

If the fruit and nuts you use are also organic in origin, so much the better. These days it is quite easy to source quality organic dried nuts and fruits from around the world.

You may think, if you are a fan of green living (and if you've found this site, you almost certainly are!) that buying produce from around the world is not so green. It's certainly true that shipping is now a major cause of CO2 emissions and environmentalists are trying to find ways to reduce that.

You can almost certainly create a healthy trail mix recipe using only produce from your own area (unless you live in Greenland, maybe!) To do this might be a great activity for kids, teaching them about origins, food miles and local diversity. And it could be fun for anyone - I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure it's possible to do here in Britain.

However, I believe there's no need for us to be too punctilious about it. You can try to use fruit and nuts from as nearby as possible, of course. For the most part, your healthy trail mix recipe will work just as well as otherwise.

The dried nuts and fruits that go to make up the bulk of a good trail mix are generally shipped by sea as they store quite well. Only a minority of such produce is flown about the world. Ways to make shipping greener will be making their appearance soon, lets hope.

Here's a list of nuts, fruits and seeds

These can all be included in a good healthy trail mix recipe.

Dried Fruits

Dates
Raisins
Sultanas
Currants
Apricots
Peaches
Apples
Pears
Banana
Cherries
Blueberries
Most of the above can be bought without any added sugar or preservatives. Some (apricots, peaches) can be found as unsulphured dried fruit.

Nuts and Seeds

Peanuts (groundnuts)
Almonds
Brazils
Walnuts
Hazels or cob nuts
Pecans
Macada...

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