Trail snacks upgrade

I like to snack on trail mix when playing or working outdoors; carried in a peanut- butter jar, it’s easy to “sip” while on the go. And, that way, you’re not putting dirty hands down into your food. Lately, I have been trying some new items in my GORP. I don’t seem to have a “best” formulation, it usually goes on the shopping list as “GORP” and I buy whatever appeals to me at the store. In recent batches, I have been giving more consideration to nutrient contents… more reading of labels. Reduced sodium has been a first consideration, and I have found an array of unsalted nuts and seeds available. There are also lightly- salted nut products with moderate amounts of sodium and a significantly lower price tag than the unsalted ones. I went through some warm- weather mixes with just nuts and raisins in the batch; that was good, low- sodium with plenty of fats and carbs, but not very interesting after a while. With cool weather, I went back to including my usual semi- sweet chocolate chips. Mixed nuts and dried pineapple appeal to my palate, but the large chunks require some attention to eating… can’t just snarf down a gulp of the mix. Dried apricots, dates, figs are great snacks, but don’t seem to fit well in Gorp mixes; I prefer them individually. I’ve eaten all of my watermelon jerky… must wait until July 5th to start my next batch of that. An item included in all of my recent GORP batches has been sunflower “nuts”, the hulled kernels. These are available unsalted as well as with salt, their flavor and texture fit well, and they contribute a good dose of potassium to my GORP mixes. I like pumpkin seeds in GORP, but I haven’t found unsalted ones… I guess I could toast some raw ones from the health- food store. A new addition to my GORP repertoire came from WhiteBlaze, where Footslogger recommended dried blueberries. They were hard to find and were expensive, but, WOW! That really is special.