When I did the hike in Arizona, we stopped to eat. We opened our packs in which they had pre-packed lots of hiking eats. Including a hard-boiled egg, some string cheese, some orange juice, a small bag of pretzels --
-- I love pretzels. I missed pretzels more than anything else at this spa. One might even say I went on the hike in order to get the damn pretzels --
-- and a "fruit and nut" bar. Aka trail mix bar. I do not like trail mix bars. I ate this one, though. I even commented to the guide -- between mouthfuls -- that I hate these things, but, at this point, I really didn't care. It actually tasted almost good.
Back at the ranch, they were available in the restaurant to take away as between meal snacks, so I got one the next day to see if they were actually good or if the desert sun had been playing tricks with my taste buds. To my surprise, I found it edible.
Bouyed by this experience, upon my return to civilization, I bought a box of chewy trail mix bars (has to be chewy -- them crunchy ones are gross) that seemed to have the same vague description as the fruit and nut bar at the resort. I thought I'd eat them for breakfast when I was sick of yogurt but didn't have enough time for cereal.
That would be today. I tried one. Got through about half of it. Tried to convince myself that it was tasty but I just wasn't buying it. Tasted like a bunch of peanuts held together with something sickeningly sweet. Where I'd hoped for some tart fruit (the spa's bar had some dried cranberries in it), this was, like, 95% peanuts and you had to eat half the bar to get to a raisin.
So, ix-nay on the ail-mix-bars-tray.
Unless any of you can recommend one. The spa's fruit and nut bar (i.e. the only trail mix bar I've ever been able to get down) was really flat. I'd (unfairly) described it as eating tire treads. The bulk of it was probably granola (reminded me of some breakfast cereal I had as a kid -- which may have been Quaker Granola -- hey, mom, what was that breakfast cereal we use to eat?) and there was lots of fruit in it. It was chewy but did not taste like it was held together by some thick sugary syrup like these bars I just bought do. Tasted sorta granola-y and fruity.
Recommendations? Anyone?
4 comments:
Try Kashi Trail Mix bars. They taste just like Granola that is stuck together, they aren't real chewy though. I bet they have them at Trader Joes but I got a box of them at Costco. The only problem with the Costco box is that it also has a couple of other flavors in it which aren't so palatable.
Our local Kroger has the Kashi Trail Mix bars which are pretty good. I could email you a homemade granola recipe if you'd like. I've made it, and it is actually pretty tasty. Making home made is good, too, because you can put in what you like, like the cranberries.
Lori
Check out Trader Joe's. They have/had this one bar with cranberries and nuts that was quite good. Can't remember the name of it, but it was in a green box. It wasn't so heavy that you felt like you'd eaten a brick.
As you discovered, most of these are just plain awful. I'm sort of partial to the Sunshine brand Oatmeal & Chocolate Chip ones, buut that's me. They ARE super sweet; just the thing to give a hypoglycemic spell the heave-ho. Lori has the right idea, though. Make your own -- you control what goes in and consequently, how they taste and chew.
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