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My family has been camping for years. I find it to be a healing experience, getting away from crowds and out into nature. Setting up a tent, cooking over a portable grill, and sitting by a campfire make for great memories.
But it’s work, too. Setting up a tent involves labor, as does taking it down. Between the lifting, the walking, the hiking, and everything else, I tend to get a lot of moderate exercise. For that reason, having easy snack food around is helpful.
Trail mix is a personal favorite. It’s both salty and sweet, with nuts that fill up me up and a few raisins and pieces of chocolate as a bonus. I can get trail mix from a lot of grocers and box stores, including Aldi. What I only recently learned is that Dollar Tree not only sells trail mix, but that it’s something out of its own house brand.
Island Choice Dollar Tree Mountain Trail Mix is a Dollar Tree exclusive. You can find it among the other room temperature foods on store shelves. It comes in a 5-ounce bag and costs $1.25. That comes out to exactly 25 cents an ounce. For comparison, Walmart’s Great Value Mountain Trail Mix, which comes in a 26 ounce bag, costs 23 cents an ounce.
The bag boasts that it is “a blend of peanuts, raisins, M&M’s milk chocolate candies, almonds, and cashews.” One bag has about 4 servings. Nutritionally, each 1/4 cup serving has 150 calories, 9 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, and 15 grams of carbs, including 11 grams of total sugars and 3 grams of added sugars.
The allergen list, unsurprisingly, is quite long: it contains tree nuts (almonds, cashews), milk, soy, and peanuts. In addition, it was manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts, tree nuts, milk, soy, wheat, eggs, and sesame. And it “may contain pits, shell pieces, or other naturally occurring objects.”
Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)
I have to say that I was a little surprised that a Dollar Tree generic trail mix would have name brand M&M’s. I was doubly surprised when I saw said M&M’s, which have no iconic Ms printed on them and look a little lackluster in the coloring department. We joked that they might have been rejected M&M’s. We were only half-kidding.
All in all, though, we were pleasantly surprised. I like trail mix, and this is a really decent trail mix. It’s got a nice blend of nuts, raisins, and chocolates that hits that trail mix note. It might have a smaller proportion of cashews and almonds compared to some mixes, but they’re there. It’s a tasty blend.
The Verdict:
I found Dollar Tree’s mountain trail mix to be a pleasant surprise. It’s a good blend of nuts, raisins, and (brand-name!) chocolate. And while the cashew and almond count might be a little light and the M&M’s aren’t the prettiest, the mix still delivers. What’s more, both the total price and the per ounce price are competitively low. This is worth a look if you need a small bag of trail mix.
