Mixing 80lbs of Bulk Trail Mix Made of Almonds Pumkin Seeds Raisins Cinnamon And Ginger Powder

For many years I've been saving money and extending my self-reliance by purchasing dry food in bulk. I've evolved a daily breakfast and snack food trail mix that started out as oats, raisins, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and ginger powder. As I learned more about the benefits of the paleo diet, and as I was able to afford to, I swapped the oats for almonds, and have made that my main staple food. If I have the luxury to add a non-dairy milk type liquid that's a bonus, but it works fine to eat dry, and I've even been able to eat it with just plain water when it's during the drier months of the year. Like many things, once you adapt to it, it's like it was always that way. So water in breakfast cereal, or for me, breakfast trail mix, it's nothing like any kind of milk, though it can work if needed, at least for me.

The main concern with making this trail mix is the stickiness of the raisins. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that many raisins are coated in oil to prevent them sticky together as much. It's not the highest quality oil and even if you buy organic raisins and the oil is therefore assumed to be organic as well, it's kind of a hidden vector of an additive. Unfortunately I've found that from my bulk supplier, only the non-organic raisins have oil-free options. Therefore, for now I'm stuck rolling the dice with the oil coated raisins. That said, depending on how sticky the raisins are, the need to coat the raisins in another material to make the mix work without clumping, I've adapted some strategies. Basically the larger the mixing container the easier the process is. In the absence of a large enough container to mix all 80lbs at once, I've had to mix the ingredients in several phases. The first of which is to break apart the box of raisins and manually coat them all with the cinnamon and ginger powder. That way, they're well separated and can be easily mixed with the almonds and pumpkin seeds. However, with a large mixing container, I'll first mix the almonds and pumpkins thoroughly, then drop the whole block of 30lbs of raisins onto, then as I slowly mix in the raisins from the top I'll started pouring a quart jar of premixed cinnamon and ginger powder onto the raisins being sure to prevent the raisins from sticking to the sides or the bottom of the container. This takes a lot of patience and care to break apart the clumps of raisins and evenly distribute the powder, but after awhile it flows well and ultimately makes for the best and most efficient result.

I usually get about 3.5, 5 gallon buckets worth of finished trail mix from the 80lbs. Depending on the time of year, as I eat more in the cold months and less in the hot, one batch will last several months. I'd say on average one bucket lasts between 4 and 6 weeks. I typically try to eat not much more than a pint a day and will often use a pint jar to measure my daily allowance. If it's extra cold or I worked extra hard I'll have some more throughout the day as a snack. However, I've learned my lessons the hard way that after any meal or snack of the mix, I have to brush my teeth with coconut oil to prevent the raisins from sticking to the teeth and degrading my dental health.

I've had great luck so far with this mix agreeing with me. So far nothing seems to be causing any allergy or irritation, I hope it lasts because it's one of the lowest cost ways to subsist of bulk foods that I know of with a paleo diet as a priority. I spent most of my poor life subsisting on grain and legume based staple food diets and it always seemed to upset my stomach or result in digestive issues. I tend to minimize if not completely eliminate grains, beans, dairy and added sugar food products in my diet now.