Legume show you brilliance.

Snack Review with footnotes: Planter’s NUT-rition line of nut mixes.

Yesterday between work and a show, I was looking for a belly filler. Already at Target, I tried to pretend that I am a healthy eater, I searched for snacks in the nut aisle at Target. I made the world's best discovery ever: The Planter's NUT-rition mixes are awesome.

First:

Awesomely sized. Like Goldilocks sized. Not too big, not too small. Good old fashioned medium sized. No doubt that a can of nut mix will fill me.

Second:

Variety! Assorted nuts and seeds and dried fruits! Hooray, many choices for the peanut avoider like me. Most of the mixes didn’t even include the stupid legume*

Third:

There are sorted by health benefits! Like vitamins in the vitamin aisle. One of my favorite things ever! There was the Omega-3 Mix, Digestive Health Mix, Antioxidant Mix, South Beach Diet Mix (which has its own Facebook page ),Energy Mix, Heart Healthy and Bone Health Mix. So many choices! I was stumped. First I wanted the Omega-3 Mix because of the delicious-ness in side and for my recent hobby of thinking about wrinkles. And Bone Health was exciting, I am a woman after all and calcium is good! And it is Women's Health Week (shout-out to Naomi for telling me) And Energy Mix had chocolate covered things in them!

The labels on the NUT-rition mixes look like vitamin labels. Or at least they do to me. This is brilliant marketing. Selling what you already have: nuts, by giving people what they want: health. So simple. So genius.

I applaud the strategy and the product. Because, I am sure other nut mixes achieve some of these same goals, but the Planter’s mixes tell me upfront and I get to choose what type of nutrition. It gives me some power of choice but not too much.  Since there are only seven mixes not a hundred from which to choose. Nice work Planter’s, someone should get a raise. And the mix is delicious.

I chose the Digestive Health Mix because fiber always wins me over. And there were pistachios (smishsmachios) in it.

From the Planter’s website:

Digestive Health Mix

This succulent blend of pistachios, almonds, tart cranberries, crunchy granola clusters and sweet cherries is an excellent source of dietary fiber, which helps promote digestive health.

• 150 calories
• 8g total fat (1g saturated fat, 0g trans fat, 2g polyunsaturated fat, 5g monounsaturated fat)
• Low saturated fat
• Low sodium (40mg per serving)

Excellent source of the following:

• Dietary Fiber

Good source of the following:

• Vitamin E
• Copper
• Magnesium
• Manganese

Each serving (8 in each can) was 20% of my daily dietary fiber in take. 20%! That beats FiberOne bars (unless you eat them by the box like I do)! I was sold.

I ended up eating over half the can in the car. That is around 5 servings. Let’s do the math. 5 x 20 + 100% I achieve maximum fiber load by eating these awesome nuts. But the thing was I was eating in the car because I was on my way to an improv show in a far away superb. And there was no stopping. I hoped that the fiber would be slow going and I wouldn’t feel the full effects of the NUT-rition Digestive Health mix until after the show.

And hoping usually works, right? It did, there was no explosion other that the improvised ones.

I love the Planter’s NUT-rition mixes! I want to try them all, however, the Digestive Health Mix is so awesome that it will be hard to not just keep buying that one.****

*I love all legumes. They are my favorite food group and a staple of my yearly month-long celebration of Fiberuary. But regular old peanuts are so boring. Unless they are salted in shells. Then that is an activity snack** Put them in a butter or a spicy noodle dish, then we can talk.***

**Shelled peanuts and hard boiled eggs are an exception to the “too much work to eat” rule. Non-exceptions are crab legs, crawfish,

***My opinion only, you can go ahead and love up on peanuts all you want. Noting against peanuts, I know peanuts are a big part of Planter’s identity. I should know I was Liz in the Book of Liz by the Talent Family: Amy and David Sedaris and there’s a giant Mr. Peanut in that play. So don’t get all angry OK?

****Constructive Feedback: There are too many dried cranberries in the mix ratio.