Hi, I'm Dr. Josh Axe and welcome to my kitchen.
This week I'm going to be making an antioxidant trail mix.
One of the questions I get asked most frequently is, "Dr. Axe, what do you do when you're traveling,
when you're out on the road?
It's so hard because the only thing that's out there is fast food restaurants, so what
you do?"
Well, I plan ahead of time and I pack, and one of the things I always bring with me when
I'm traveling is my antioxidant trail mix.
This is good for, number one, the title of it is antioxidant, which is going to help
fight free radical damage, help you age slower, boost your energy levels, so this recipe is
good for so many things.
It's good for a kid's snack as well.
What we're going to start off with here in our antioxidant trail mix is almonds.
Almonds are good because they are a good source of monounsaturated fat.
That's Omega-9 fats.
It's going to help balance your hormones, help with actually lubricating your joints
and overall it's just a good, healthy nut.
So we're going to start here with some almonds.
The next thing we're going to add in . . . and it's about one cup of almonds.
The next thing we're going to add in is pecans.
Pecans are the most antioxidant rich nut that is out there.
We're going to take one cup of pecans here and add that in.
Both of these nuts are also good in fiber which is good for your bowels and colon.
The next thing here is apples.
We've taken some dried apple slices.
Apples are also a good source of fiber, good source of vitamin, minerals, also very high
in antioxidants.
We're going to add those in here as well and that's about a half . . . so we added one
cup of almonds, one cup of pecans, and one cup of dried apple slices.
The next thing we're going to add in is something to sweeten it up a little bit, and that's
raisins.
Raisins are actually loaded with potassium.
That's an electrolyte that's going to help your body recover fast if you're working out
and overall just help boost your energy levels.
We're going to start off here with, like I said, about a half a cup of raisins.
Raisins are also high in antioxidants, the same thing you're going to find in red wine
and grapes, Resveratrol.
That's the antioxidant you're going to find in raisins.
The last thing here, everybody's favorite food, chocolate.
We've got some dark chocolate here.
It's above 60% cocoa.
Cocoa is the antioxidant rich nutrient that we're finding here in the dark chocolate.
So cocoa, we're going to add a half a cup of dark chocolate chips.
You can find these in just about any health food store and even at regular convenient
grocery stores today you can find dark chocolate.
We're going to add those in here as well.
The last thing we're going to add in to taste is some sea salt and then some cinnamon.
We're going to take some sea salt here, probably put about a teaspoon in, just simply sprinkle
that on to kind of get the sweet and salty taste that I personally love.
So we're going to add some sea salt in here.
Then the last thing we're going to add in here is some organic cinnamon.
Cinnamon is actually one of the most nutrient-dense and it's actually the highest antioxidant
food on the entire planet that we know of.
If you actually look in general, if you go and look at what's called ORAC Score, that's
O-R-A-C, it's how well something fights free radical damage and it's how many antioxidants
are in something.
Cinnamon is ranked number one.
It's also great for balancing out blood glucose levels, so blood sugar for diabetes and weight
lose and energy levels.
So we're going to also generously to throw some cinnamon on here.
I'll typically throw on about one teaspoon of the cinnamon.
So we'll do the cinnamon here and the last thing we're going to do is simply mix it up.
You can get a big spoon or use your hands to mix it up.
Simply mix up this antioxidant trail mix a little bit and it's ready to go.
What I like to do when I'm traveling is simply throw this in a big Ziploc bag and I'll bring
it to conferences with me, snack on it while I'm on an airplane or while I'm traveling
in the car.
This is great also for a kid's snack.
It's great for you when you're traveling.
So now you don't have any excuses to eat the unhealthy snacks when you're on your road
trips.
Now you have got a healthy snack.
You've got the antioxidant trail mix.