Trail mix is something that we used to only take hiking, but now we see popping up in lunchboxes on road troops and even coming with us to the movies. Hi, I'm leannlud and I'm cz Burrow, and it's two of Australia's leading dieticians. We bring the Nutrition Couch product review. We'll weekly chat on new products and old favorites that you can find right here in Aussie's supermarkets. And in today's episodes easy we chat through three different types of
trail mixes available in our supermarkets. And while we do and don't recommend each one, so I thought we'd start with a nice home rand one. So the wool Wears trail Mix. It's the Hikers trail Mix four hundred grams. It's quite a big bag. It's seven dollars for the bag, which brings it down to about seventeen fifty per kilo. That'll make sense when we reference the other two that
we've chosen as well. So when we look at the ingredients on the Willwors trail Mix, it is roasted and salted nuts with peanuts being nineteen percent of that mix, cashews almonds with a little bit of salt and peanut oil in the nut mix, followed by sultanas which the sultanas have sultanas and some flour oil. Followed by apricots, which are more like those they're not true dried apricots.
I think they're more like those apricot pieces because they've got apricot rice flour, some preservatives, and some sugar in there. Banana chips, which are banana coconut oil, sugar, and some natural banana flavors. So I've actually added banana flavor into the banana chips, which is interesting, followed by pepitas, cranberries, milk chocolate, which is made up of sugar, hydrogenized palm, pernal oil, milk solids and a mulsifiers, cocoa powder and
natural vanilla flavor. That's all within that milk chocolate mix. So it's quite a long ingredient list for a fruit and nut mixed sushi, which is quite interesting. And then of course the allergens in there are peanuts, trenuts, soy, milk, and sulfites as well, So not great from an allergy perspective for a lot of people. Maybe gonna give it
about a four or five out of ten. I don't love it just because I look at the ingredient list and I just think there's a lot of additives in there for something that should be basically just fruit, nuts and seeds.
Really well, it turns out a serve. A third of it ends up being sugar. So I think that because of the nature what it looks like, trail mix has traditionally always been thought of a very healthy snack, as has dried fruits. Now, the things that I'm looking for and the thing that turned me off this straight away, and I'm with you in terms of the rating. First of all, the first ingredient at nineteen percent is peanuts. Now, peanuts are nutritious, but they don't have the density of
nutrition that nuts like almonds, walnuts, cashews do. So the fact that that's the bulk of it straightaway tells me that it's sort of using it as a filler. And then there's a fair whack of sultanas in there, which are concentrated fruits sugar as is their apricot, and yeah, there's about six or seven different types of sugars going through that product on top of it, which basically gives you per thirty grands and Let's be honestly, I'm like,
thirty grams of trail mix is tiny. What would it be like two match box worth, Like we're talking a tiny handful.
Not even a handble hair.
Yeah, it's tiny because of the density of the nuts and then the dried fruit. So you're getting over one hundred and fifty almost one hundred and fifty calories that tiny amount. You're only getting three grams of protein, which is really low for a product that should be higher in protein, particularly if it's got a nut or legume base. And the massive amount of sugars you know, as I said, a third of it ten grams of sugars. Now some
is naturally occurring, but some is certainly added. And again two point two grams of fiber per serve is low for a whole food product. So the issue I generally have with trail mix and why don't generally prescribe it for my clients, But was excited to see some new sort of pro portion control varieties in supermarkets recently, was that it's just so easy to overeat and everyone thinks
it's healthy. They just put it into a container in the kitchen and keep grabbing it, and it's literally hundreds of extra calories that slip in with no full factor because you can just munch through that all day. It's like Eminem's, you know, you just keep going pringles. Once you pop, you can't stop. So yeah, I would certainly not be recommending this one, especially with the.
Chocolate in it, like it makes it very emorish, And just going back to the nutrition panel, I realized I forgot to do that, so thank you for running us through that. The fat title was seven point four grams or two point four being saturated, so it's not all the healthy, good fats from the nuts and seeds that we would like to see as well. There's a little
bit of saturated fat in there as well. And the car portioned total was thirteen grams with ten of that being sugar, so quite a high sugar product, which is why it's so easy to overreach. So like, you're not the biggest fan of trail mix, and.
It's expensively and seventeen bucks a kilo that is really expensive.
So yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of it, particularly this mix itself. But you know, DRAMs absolutely has a time and place if you're going out and you're doing a six eight ten hour high cor you're on your bike and you're a bit of a trithlete, Like if you're an athlete with high energy needs, it's great. If you're a growing child or toddler, it's great, but for most adults. I actually can't remember the last time I wrote troumix into a meal plan, Susie, and I'm sure you're the same as me.
Well, I can't remember the last time I knew someone who went for an eight or ten hour high either maybe one or two I have occasionally there's big bull day ones, but no, I do have some very active clients that absolutely were I would recommend something like this, but even I think I'd rather them go for it is a handful of normal nuts, a peanut, but a sandwich and a piece of fruit and amuseally, but that's generally what I'll get them to take with them because
as you said, it's actually quite expensive, like it's not something that's very affordable at the moment. So anyway, we'll bang on about that a little bit later. But next one we've got, I just wanted to go the coal's brand in comparison, so that one was the wool worst
Hyper's trail mix four hundred grams. The Coals one is the coal's fruit and nut trail mix at four hundred grams as well, So this one's four dollars for the bag, so the same amount compared to the woolworst one seven dollars a bag, so quite a difference per price points. It works out to be ten dollars per kilo. So I thought that was quite interesting considering they're both, you know, technically the home brand variety of that.
We look at the ingredients. The top ingredient for the coals one is dried fruit forty six percent, so quite a lot of dried fruit. Nearly half that is dried fruit. And in the dried fruit, we've got raisins, cranberries, sugar oil, cottonseed oil, and granola oil, and quite a lot of different oals, plus seeds at thirty percent. We've got a mix of some flour and for pito seed, and we've
got nuts at twenty four percent, almonds and cashews. I guess a cleaner ingredient list from this perspective, like it's basically just some dried fruits and nuts and some seeds, and then going through the nutrition panels, so serving size is thirty grams, so very the same size as a wool West one, very similar energy wise, just shy have six hundred kilodeeles, which is roughly about one hundred and forty five calories, four point five grams of protein, so
higher protein than the wool West one, eight point six grams of fat with only less than one gram of that being saturated fat, so a much better fat profile in this one. Ten grams of carbohydrate with eight of that being sugar, two point four grams of fiber, and point seven to grams of sodium, so basically don't even more about the sodium in the product. So I think this for a traumic SUSI is a much better option. Not only is it better price wise, like it's much
more budget friendly. The nutrition analysis is far better as well, a little bit less sugar, less saturated fat, a little bit more protein, a little bit more dietary fiber as well, so nutritionally it's more superior. Budget wise, it's more superior, and the ingredient list is as far less than what the ingredient list is on the warl worst one, So for me, this definitely takes the price so far. I like it.
It's clearly, and you know what I mean. It is what it is. You've got a certain amount of dried fruit, which is a trail mix in terms of energy requirements for people who are doing hikes or endurance rides, et cetera. So and they're stating what it is. I like the seed proportions amazing, Like thirty percent seeds is really good quality product. And nuts. I'd love the nuts to be a little bit higher at twenty four, but they're still pretty good.
And they're just almonds and cashews. There's no peanuts in their ears, so they're using good quality nuts.
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. The five is still a bit lower, you know, two point four grams per thirty grams. I'd love to see it up around three to five sugars. You know you are going to get sugars at eight grams from dried fruit. But the saturated fat's very very low, which is as strong it's saying that the fat in
that product is naturally occurring coming from the nuts. It's an energy dense food, absolutely, but for those who need it can be a very smart choice and for the pricely and that's always half what the Woolies one is being advertised or Thorry being start with a much cleaner, stronger ingredient list. So this is certainly far, fast superior to the Woolies.
Well, absolutely yeah, we couldn't agree more. And then our final product, we thought, this is one of the new ones in the market, Susie. It's the Harvest box of the big big box power Mix, so it's Harvest Box is a brand and the Power Mix is the type that we've chosen. Now this one I didn't realize, Susie. I just picked one online. It's just the full box, so it's two hudred and twenty grams for the box.
You said that they actually come in little portion size and mounts as well, which I'll let you discuss in a moment, But the two hundred and twenty gram boxes as so on Sourd this week. It coals for three p forty five. Normally it's about seven dollars for the two twenty grams, so definitely the most expensive out of all of them, sort of double the price point of the other two for sort of half of what you're getting. But let's go through the ingredients in the power mix.
So it's almonds as a top ingredient, which we love to see a good quality nut as a first ingredient, followed by flame raisins, which have a little bit of vegetable oil in them, followed by Cranberry's milk chocolate which contains cane sugar, four cream, milk powder, cocoa butter and cocoa mass. So even just the quality of that milk chocolate is far better than the milk chocolate that was in the Woolworst blend with a little bit of a mulcivies.
Followed by some macadamias, sunflower seeds, pistachios, and pepeitas. So pretty you know, pretty clean for an ingredient. Let's yes, we have the added milk chocolate in there. Some people would say that that makes the product. I would agree. It's always nice when you see a little bit chocolate and some choil mix, but you know, pretty good. You know, they've got some good quality nuts, and there's some almonds and macadamias, good quality seeds. We've got some flowers, pepeteras.
We've also got some pistachios which are quite expensive as well, which might just explain the price point as well. So I like that mix.
What I noticed actually and why we discussed or decided having this product in here today was that I had noticed in the I actually went to Woolies and found actually was a cold. Now Coals have got several new boxes of portion control trail mixes, and they're actually across the board quite strong, so have a look. They're in the baking section actually in a funny place we don't think of them, but really smart mix of product. And
I also like this Harvest Box brand. So you can buy them in forty five gram bags liam which is a really decent serving size, so it comes in an over two hundred calories per serve, but forty five is quite significant, so that's a really decent kind of handful. You certainly feel quite satisfied after that, and that will
give you about five grams of protein. The fat is not low, almost fifteen grams per serve, so a third of it is fat, but the saturated is coming in very low at two point two, so it's not too bad. And then you're getting, of course some of the fat from the nut base, which i'll talk about in a second. Carbo hydrate's seventeen point three, but sugar's fourteen point four, so that's where the chocolate's coming through a little bit.
It does have a decent amount of sugar perserve, and it's getting to the three grams of dietary fiber, which Leanne and I like. It's almond's first, followed by the raisins as you said, and then I think some of the fat is coming from those macadamia, sunflowercis, pistachios, per peter, so all really good profile of fats too. So I think this would sit for mean because it's not overly in it expensive is that? How much is it coming in at these about fifteen sixteen dollars a kilo, Yeah,
so not inexpensive. But what I think the message is I would give this one. Say, I'd give the coals one, say eight maybe, and then I give this one a seven. But I think they're worth having a look at, and I think that they're really smart portion controlled snacks for the afternoon. They're fantastic when you add them to some protein yogurt as a hit of both portion control nuts
and taste and crunch whole food. But really, I think the message from Leanna and I today is you want ones that have got at least three if not closer to five grams of protein per serve and at least three grams of dietary fiber per serve for us to really like it as a balanced, filling snack choice. And of course you've got to be really mindful of the portions, which is why I personally like the portion control individual packs, So check them out of coals in the baking section.
Definitely, I agree with you. I would sort of give it around a six or seven. I think the ingredients are quite good that that profile, and some of those ingredients have chosen, like it's nice to see some maceadaemians in there, some pistachios and compitas. They're not typically thinks you see in a nut blend. They typically put a ton of peanuts because they're really cheap, and almonds typically as well, which yes, this one has almonds, but it's got a nice sort of more diversity of some nuts
and seeds in there too. And let's you know, let's be real here, it does have added chocolate as well, so just being really conscious of that that that's sort of one of those discretionary foods that we're adding into our diet. So if you're going to have, you know, some chocolate and neutral mix regularly. Probably not a great idea to be having biscuits, cakes, cookies, ice cream on top of that as well. So just be conscious that some of these little things do sneak in sometimes masquerading
as healthy products as well. And particularly be just conscious if you are giving these to kids regularly in their lunchboxes, you are regularly adding in a lot of added sugar into their diet as well. So not that that's a bad thing, but I think that the portion and the amount or the frequency of how often you do these things just needs to be sort of taken into consideration as well.
True.
True, all right, well, al Susy. That brings us to the end of another podcast product review where well over one hundred now what are we at one fifty two? We're kicking up to that two hundred markets crazy how many podcasts we've done. We're thoroughly enjoying it. So if you haven't subscribed to the Potty, if you knew listening, make sure you do give us a subscribe, make sure you leave us a positive review in the Purple Apple podcast app. And we also have our website at the
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