I love meat. I totally respect the choice many people make to resist the siren’s song of meat, but let’s just say that if the sirens were serving up prime beef and I was Odysseus, I would jumped overboard and been halfway there by the time the steaks finished resting.
I even love meat at snack time, and beef jerky is one of my favorite snacks. Since I’ve made the decision to eat a healthy diet, I’ve given my food choices a lot more attention, from my meals to my snacks and everything in between. Today, the magnifying glass of culinary justice is focused on whether or not beef jerky is good for you.
So, is beef jerky a healthy snack that you should reach for without feeling any guilt? Yes and no. Some beef jerky is great, but the vast majority on the market should be avoided. Today, we’ll discuss both sides of that meaty coin, starting with why most beef jerky is not good for you.
What Makes Most Beef Jerky Bad For You?
I grew up under the impression that all beef jerky was bad for you. I also grew up an unapologetic carnivore with a love of all things meat. When snack time came around, beef jerky was a guilty pleasure that I knew was bad for me, but I bought it anyway because it made a tasty and satisfying snack. There are a few things in particular that make commercial beef jerky a less than healthy snack choice.
- Salt - You know the drill by now. Every time we discuss the health aspects of a restaurant or commercial product, the first thing we need to address is just how much salt they pack into the food, and beef jerky is far from an exception. In fact, beef jerky is one of the worst offenders. A sample product I found at the grocery store contained 590 mg of sodium in a single one ounce serving! I don’t know about you, but I can knock down three times that in a single snack session.
- Preservatives -Sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite, two cousins that frequently appear together in packaged meats. Sodium nitrite is a carcinogenic food additive that the USDA tried to ban back in the 1970s, but decided against it due to complaints from the food industry. Manufacturers love it because it keeps meat red, which makes it more appetizing, which results in more sales. Why is it bad for you? Because it causes cancer!This is where the sodium erythorbate comes into play. Sodium erythorbate is an antioxidant and very similar in structure to vitamin C, which helps to prevent the sodium nitrite from breaking down into nitrosamines, which have been found to cause cancer. Think of it as the antidote that is added to a poison in the hopes that it will allow you to drink the poison and not die. Yum? I don’t think so.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup -Ah, high fructose corn syrup, the most hated and vilified product ever concocted by food companies. As to why high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, that is going to have to wait for another post, so you’ll just have to trust me for the moment.To be fair, high fructose corn syrup does not appear in the good-ole-beef-jerky we’re using as our standard, but it took me less than thirty seconds to find two other varieties just a few bags away that had it listed near the top of the ingredient list. Just another reason to always read your ingredient labels carefully.
Three Aspects of Healthy Beef Jerky
Okay, now that we have the bad news out of the way, we can turn our attention to happier news: there is a wide variety of commercially available beef jerky out there that is not only not unhealthy, but is actually good for you. Imagine that – healthy beef jerky that you can eat without feeling like the food police are waiting to storm your kitchen.
So, in order to keep your beef jerky healthy, you have a couple of options. You can always make your own beef jerky at home if you are industrious and have the space to dry the meat, but if you’re anything like me, you are lazy don’t really have the space to try making beef jerky. Does this mean that healthy beef jerky is out of your reach? Of course not. Read on, my carnivorous brothers and sisters, and find a few tips to buying beef jerky that is actually good for you.
- Opposites Attract - Think about everything I told you to avoid in the previous section, then look for exactly the opposite. If it is full of preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, and the jerky is caked in salt, take
one step forwardtwo steps back and try again. - Light Reading - When shopping for any sort of packaged food product, you are more likely to come away with a healthy product if the ingredient list is blissfully short. Beef, a little salt, maybe a little sugar, and maybe a few other ingredients such as spices are plenty. If the package you are interested in has The Brothers Karamazov printed on the back, just walk away.
- Naturally the Best - A lot of brands of beef jerky market themselves as being all-natural. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but this by itself doesn’t tell you anything. Treat these brands with the same scrutiny as you would the larger commercial brands and carefully read the label.
- Grass-Fed Beef -Whenever you buy anything beef-related, the number one thing you need to look for are the words, “grass-fed,” and “organic.” These three words mean that the cow in question consumed nothing but grass its entire life, rather than the mass quantities of corn most commercial beef gets fattened on. Why is this important?Grass-fed beef is important because it has fewer unhealthy omega-6 fats and more healthy omega-3s, the same healthy fats found in fish. Organic is important because the cow is not given any hormones, chemicals, or additives. This creates a cow that is leaner, tastier, and healthier, both in life and in your belly.
Summation
Is beef jerky good for you? Yes and no. Most commercial beef jerky should be left on the shelf because of the high levels of salt, carcinogens, and high fructose corn syrup, but all hope is not lost. Homemade beef jerky is best, but there are plenty of commercial products out there that you can eat in confidence. Just make sure that your beef jerky: is low in sodium, contains no preservatives, and comes from grass-fed beef and you can nosh with carnivorous confidence.
Question of the Day: What are your favorite natural beef jerky brands, and do you do anything creative with it? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
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