Eating is one big deal in the early human world and our simple recommendation is this: bring lots of snacks. Bring snacks for you and bring snacks for your new-found evolutionary pals!

Trust us — show up in a time machine and E.M. will come sniffing (people are damn curious no matter how high or low we stand on the evolutionary scale). If you show up in a flash of light and a metal box, you had better come with something to offer (A.K.A.: snacks!).

Since there’s no written language until 3200 BCE, Early Man can grunt on and on about your future gift food without leaving a written historic note to influence the timeline. We suggest a simple trail mix recipe it’s super fast to throw together and easy on the pocket. Feel free to hand out this trail mix to the E.M. you meet but beware of the bag! That plastic-metallic-poly bag never, ever erases from the timeline and that leads directly to traveler interference or TA Rule #3: “Don’t Litter on the Timeline”.

Use Those Thumbs — (The Perfect Early Trail Mix)

(Mix up any dried fruit available at your modern supermarket (aisle 5 next to the soup). The traveler has no idea what a big deal it is to eat dried fruit –historically speaking. Dried strawberries or pineapples are a mind-blowing delicacy to E.M.

• 2 cups oatmeal, Rice Checks, really any cereal, bread crumbs — something grainy and processed — whatever!
• 1 cup of dried (cheap stuff because you’re going to need more) raisins, raspberries, blueberries, pineapples, or strawberries
• 1 cup of peanuts with shell — Nuts are okay despite what some claim about time travelers creating nut allergies
• 1 box of powdered milk (yes, confounding powdered milk — it’s one of the eternal unanswerable questions: how does one drink dried milk?)
• 1 cup sand
• Mix all contents in a (see warning) plastic bag and shake! Shake it as much or as little as you like, it really doesn’t matter — it’s going onto the ground

Sprinkle your trail mix on the forest floor then, importantly, stand back! Once the local E.M. sniff out your trail mix (on a trail or not), they’ll come loping in fast.