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Thoughts on making one's own dry mixes?
A general thought that came from a more specific one I had the other day: I've been trying to make sure I eat breakfast by making overnight oats, but it can be a pain on tired nights to get it set up.
Are there any gotchas with making your own mixes of dry goods? I feel like I know enough to scare myself with things like "oh well that might not be shelf-stable when mixed since xyz pathogen from it grows well when provided with abc".
At the moment, I'm just imagining prepping like a weeks worth of oats, chia seeds, raisins, etc. so that I can dump milk in each night, which seems like it would be totally fine.
I'm almost certain it'd be fine for things like oats and such, as long as you eat it all before the expiry date of whichever ingredient expires first. The general recipe for bacterial growth is carbohydrates + water + warmth (and "warmth" here can be anything above freezing really). Dried grains and cereals and such can be incredibly nutrient-dense and long-lasting in spite of it, so long as they're kept dry - Once you soak them in water, bacteria can start eating at the starches and sugars that disperse in the water, and then it becomes a problem. This is also why you shouldn't soak your rice for anything over 24 hours. Even then with dried grains you can tell if they've gone bad via water contamination because they will smell awful and will probably have visible mold spots.
If you're really concerned you might consider pairing the ingredients up or something similar, instead of putting them all together in a single container. Mix your chia seeds and oats, mix your raisins and nuts, make it so you only need to combine 2-3 things instead of 5-6. I'd also recommend getting a set of measuring cups if you don't already have them; I find the less time I have to spend thinking about ingredient ratios and such, the more likely I am to actually go to the kitchen and make my overnight oats. Much easier if I know I only have to take one scoop of x and two scoops of y with z cups of milk, no further thinking required. Plus it allows for better modification if you decide you want more or less of something one day.
I don’t have much to add to the conversation, as I’m not terribly knowledgeable about hardcore food science stuff, but I assume that — if everything is freezer safe — you can just mix it up and throw it in the deep freeze. I’d imagine effectively everything is safe to mix at -18c.
I've done it before, and the biggest issue was honestly pretty mundane: the smallest bits will inevitably migrate to the bottom of whatever container you use, making it annoying to get a good mix of everything into your bowl.
I just put all the individual ingredients in easily opened plastic containers now. This way you don't have to fuss around with bags in the morning, and it's reasonably fast to just open a couple and dump stuff into a bowl.
I make our own muesli--oat flake, spelt flakes, barley flakes, various nuts and seeds and dried fruits, with some banana powder and date sugar. I often toast the oats and sesame seeds. I keep it in glass jars or stainless steel lidded jars on the counter and have not had any problems at all with spoilage (I make enough to last a month)
Altogether with the toasting it takes probably 15 minutes tops to make, and costs less than store-bought. Totally worth the time and it tastes much better. Also you can tweak the ingredients so you don't get bored. Little things like sesame seeds can fall to the bottom but you can just give it an occasional stir.