The Truth About Trail Mix

1) It lies.

2) Only 17% of people actually eat it on the trail.

I bought the Whole Foods Brand, More Than Macadamia (wow, that just got added to the tough words to spell list) Trail Mix the other day. The title of the package could NOT be more perfect. It was MORE than macadamia. There were MAYBE 4.5 macadamia nuts in there…but they enticed me with the packaging to get me to believe I was buying a macadamia-laden trail mix.

I should have known when macadamia was the last ingredient listed. This got me thinking about Trail Mix in general. Everyone has a favorite thing in a pile of TM and watching someone go in for a specific grab is actually quite an amusing past time. Next time there is a bowl of Trail Mix at a party, sit back with your glass of wine and be a social outcast for 5 min. Watch that bowl. Watch it. Watch the people who eye it. The people who slyly grab a handful only to throw out the pretzel in the trash. Or the person who ambles up to it only to scrounge around for all the rye chips. AHHHH THE COVETED RYE CHIPS!

Suddenly, there are no more rye chips in that bowl. Gone. (Well, there were only about 5 to begin with…but still.) The rye chip craze must have hit the Gardetto headquaters and Nan Gardetto got on it right away. Nan gave the people what they wanted…

Slam dunk, Nan…ALL RYE CHIPS. My husband’s favorite, he was one of the many “special requests” they received.

Gardetto’s gets it.

Here is a pic of your typical Trail Mix grab. This handful is what Trail Mix enthusiasts would call a…

Equal parts of everything so you get the trail mix flava flav. Perfect for a strenuous hike or watching Season 4 of Breaking Bad.

There are so many Trail Mix varieties it’s almost scary…so I will not even go into them but I will leave you with Trail Mix’s super awesome cousin…Puppy Chow. White. Messy. Addicting.

Nobody knows the true origin of Puppy Chow but my strong memory of PC is that my friend Gretchen would always bring it to sleep-overs. All of us brace-faced girls would sit with our own bowl of it watching the movie Lady in White, all stuffing our faces full of chalky white stuff. Word on the street is it that this dude is behind the madness.