Ten Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Sam's Choice Tropical Trail Mix

There's more to Sam's Choice Tropical Trail Mix than they'd like you to believe; it's riddled with preservatives, additives, and a taste totally unlike anything fruit and nuts ought to taste like.

1 - Sam's Choice Tropical Trail Mix actually has added sugar. It's the second thing on the list of ingredients. A real trail mix with any intent on keeping you healthy and providing nutritious snacking would not add sugar. This is but one of the additives present in the Trail Mix, and, really, is one of the least worrisome ones. I won't rag on them too badly for this.

2 - Calcium chloride, for product texture, has been added. Calcium chloride is used on roads. Interestingly, calicum chloride treated roads reduce loss of aggregate by up to 75 percent. Isn't that nice? It's used to salt roads, also; it effectively lowers the freezing point of moisture on road bases to nearly 60 degrees below zero. You aren't a road and you aren't moisture. You really probably don't want this stuff in your body.

3 - Sulfur dioxide. I saw this, and I actually flinched. I say this, because sulfur dioxide is a key factor in acid rain. Sulfur dioxide is a product of the burning of sulfurous waste, which then oxidizes to become sulfur dioxide. Sulfur dioxide then encounters and reacts with moisture (water, really) in the atmosphere to form a weak acid. This acid can be defined as a weaker version of sulfuric acid (the same stuff that's in some car batteries, is used industrially, and will burn you to a crisp). Sulfur dioxide is but one reaction away from becoming sulfur trioxide. Sulfur trioxide reacts violently with water to form sulfuric acid. There's moisture in your body, and if sulfur dioxide contributes to acid rain, I doubt you'd want to eat it.

4 - If you look, you'll see that very few of the edibles in Sam's Choice Tropical Trail mix are actually from the United States. Firstly, this means that they probably weren't fresh when they entered the country. They surely aren't fresh after they've sat on the store shelf for a while, sat on your pantry shelf for a while, and by the time they enter your digestive tract, they're no fresher.

5 - The serving size is small, even disturbingly so. One-third of a cup, 30 grams. That's almost nothing. At 6 grams of fat and 130 calories per serving, with almost no nutritional value per serving, almost no protein, almost no dietary fiber, and a small serving size, there's really no point in eating it.

6 - The nuts are waxy and flat-tasting. The mix really isn't a mix; it's a lurid blend of dishonored fruit and nuts that deserved better than to be packaged and preserved and dehydrated and have sugar added (because when you dehydrate something and preserve it with chemicals that have no good reason to be anywhere near your tongue, things lose flavor).

7 - When you reach into the bag, you may notice a wet, almost sort of waxy coating on your fingers. This is part preservative, part lost moisture, part coconut oil, and part... (arcane and mysterious!) other things.

8 - It's expensive, considering the quality. Low-ish quality, and it's around four dollars (USD) where I am. Doesn't taste all that great, and, here, anyway, I could buy a nice can of mixed nuts (fresher and more nutritious and healthier than the nuts present in the Sam's Choice Tropical Trail mix, with more variety, also.) for two dollars, and two bags of mixed frozen Dole-brand fruit for a dollar each, thaw the fruit out, stick it on a dehydrater, wait 36 hours, and mix the nuts and fruit that I bought together for the same price, but get more for my money (almost double), no preservatives, and a fresher taste, and even mix everything to my own taste.

9 - Luckily, I discovered something else, useful, even, that I could do with Sam's Choice Tropical Trail mix. Apparently the coating on the nuts is flammable. While I don't encourage pyromania or anything, you can actually burn the coating off with a lighter. I'm assuming what I'm burning is coconut oil. It burns nicely, though it smells unusual. Also, a neat trick: you can freeze the papaya for several hours and use it as driveway chalk. You can thank a baby cousin of mine for this startling development. I doubt you'd want to ingest anything with qualities such as these.

10 - The last two times I ate a medium-sized bowl of the trail mix, I ended up waking up with a breakout over and around my face, even though the day before I was completely acne-less (as I had been and have been for quite a while; months at least). While I'm not saying that the Tropical Trail mix caused my acne neccessarily, I am saying that it's an interesting coincidence, especially considering the preservatives and other nasties present in the Tropical Trail mix. So, if you've got a hot date soon, you may want to hold off on eating your Tropical Trail mix. Just grab an apple or something.
It's safer.