Is there a way to prevent mixed cereals from separating?

OmegaMouse@feddit.uk to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 49 points –

I quite enjoy cereals that have a range of different ingredients - like oat clusters with freeze dried strawberry or museli with almonds and raisins. Over time though, the oats rise to the top and the smaller bits get trapped at the bottom so when you're near the end of the packet it's 70% dust.

Is there an easy way to prevent this? It's hard to mix up the contents without breaking up everything into smaller bits. And shaking up the packet just makes the separation worse.

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Least effort way: Store sideways/horizontally/perpendicular to pouring. Not vertical. Will settle to side instead of bottom and come out more evenly.

That's actually a very simple solution that I imagine would be pretty effective!

It leads me to wonder - is the granular separation more pronounced in a horizonal section (where you'd have more surface area for particles to fall between) or a vertical section (where gravity would have a greater effect)?

Particles are going to settle at roughly the same rate either orientation.

  • Vertical storage will stack higher and have a greater distance to opening on top, causing the not mixed well enough issue.
  • Horizontal storage more evenly distributes the mix for a more similar pour upon reorientation.
  • Flat on it’s face would distributor even closer to even mix, but that way lies madness and is not optimal for pantry storage. [Maybe flat on top of fridge might work?]

So the spectrum will be the same at any orientation except the effect will be more or less pronounced. With flat storage leading to the least granular separation while also being inconvenient to practically store.