Jack Link’s Premium Cuts Peppered Beef Jerky I chanced across at a local Sheetz convenience store while gathering up other beef snack products for review. I’ve since tasted pieces from a jumbo-sized 6.2 ounce 175 grams bag, and think this beef jerky is definitely hot and really spice. Its smoked beef strips are long, extra thick, and extra chewy, while bursting with black pepper flavor. Bits of pepper and other spices coat each beef strip, and sometimes fall off while eating. So be sure to eat this jerky over a plate. The pepper taste by far dominates to sum taste of this product, overshadowing the smoked beef flavor substantially. This does not taste much like your usual smoked and dried beef snack food. Apparently, the Great Value Peppered Beef Jerky I just reviewed was patterned after this name brand.
Like the Great Value brand, this Jack Link’s jerky is a low-fat, low-carb snack food as well. But don’t go bonkers with `eating it, as it still contains considerable sodium as well at nitrites. But for an easy-to-store snack at the gym or on a long plane trip, this peppered beef jerky is an excellent food companion. It will not make you sleepy as the heavily-sugared treats can, and it’s hard to eat fast. This allows your body to realize that it’s filling up before you overeat. You have to work a smidgen to fully consume this spicy snack food.
Benefits And Features
- As with most beef jerky products, they include a moisture-absorbing pouch in the bag to take away any residual wetness in the meat. This helps minimize mold and bacterial growth in this product. This is a good thing, given the sugar herein.
- Since these beef pieces are thicker and longer, this food requires more effort and time swallow. So we’re encouraged to eat more slowly, as dietitians would like.
- This beef jerky is heavily spiced and smoked. This spiciness distinguishes this beef jerky from the not-so-heavily-spiced beef sticks and other beef jerkies.
- The label indicates black pepper, which I adore. In fact, the little spice fragments, sticking on each meat slice, look a lot like black pepper, matching its dark and light color variations.
- This form of preserved beef requires refrigeration only after you open it for the first time, and only then, if you want to keep it longer than several days.
- Jack Link’s beef jerky is well-known for its durability in hot climates, as construction workers and soldiers alike take it with them on their missions. This beef snack lacks crunch, so can be eaten quietly (nice for a soldier). Plus, the salt within helps replace salt lost through sweating by the soldiers.
- Jack Link’s Peppered Beef Jerky has a pleasant, but not so subtle pepper scent that duplicates the actual taste pretty exactly. So smelling this strongly spiced beef indeed inspires the mouth to water, as the aroma forecasts the awesome taste experience to come.
- This premium-cuts jerky is a low-fat food with just 1 gram of fat per serving, and zero of those grams is saturated fat. It’s also low carb, at 4 grams, and this peppered snack is high in protein at 15 grams per serving. It’s a low-fat, low-carb, high-protein taste treat with a persistent bite.
- I experienced no strain working the resealable bag. Sometimes with some of these products, the zipper part separates from the bag sides, creating a hole that totally nullifies the freshness-retaining effects of this zipper. Not so here.
Disadvantages
- This jerky tastes sweeter than Great Value’s peppered beef jerky that I recently reviewed. The sweetness stands out rather prominently, unmasked by the peppery kick flavor. I get so tired of all this added sugar!
- Like most products of this type, this beef jerky leaves little stringy pieces stuck between the teeth commonly, that demands follow-up brushing or flossing to clean away.
- The fiery pepper flavor lingers in the mouth and on the lips for several minutes after I finish eating a strip.
- Store-brands of beef jerky like Jack Link’s, are highly processed snack foods, with a large list of undesirable food additives, including sugar, monosodium glutamate, and sodium nitrite.
- This jerky-style peppered beef is also somewhat high in total sodium at 600 milligrams per serving. This sodium amount makes the grade of this product, a once-in-a-while-only pleasure, though its deliciously satisfying black pepper spice, smoke, and beef flavors might induce you to eat it more often than you;d wish to. Yet if you’re toiling in hot environments, eating this a few times throughout your workday would help refurbish your body salt, and quell your hunger besides.
Ingredients
Beef, water, sugar. Less than 2% of salt, black pepper, maltodextrin, dried soy sauce (soybeans, salt, wheat), monosodium glutamate, flavorings, hydrolyzed corn protein, sodium erythorbate, paprika extract, sodium nitrite. Contains: wheat and soy.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving size: 1 ounce, 28 grams. Servings per container: About 6.
- Amount per serving: Calories: 80. Calories from fat: 10.
- Total fat: 1 gram, 2% DV.
- Saturated fat: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Trans fat: 0 grams.
- Cholesterol: 25 milligrams, 8% DV.
- Sodium: 600 milligrams, 25% DV.
- Total carbohydrate: 4 grams, 1% DV.
- Dietary fiber: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Sugars: 3 grams.
- Protein: 15 grams, 30% DV.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Calcium: 0% DV.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Iron: 6% DV.
Product Rating
I’d recommend highly this Jack Link’s Peppered Beef Jerky given its mostly healthy nutritional values. I’m not crazy about the easily perceptible sweetness or the higher-than-Great-Value price. But all-in-all, this is a pretty good smoked beef snack. So I’d rate this snack food at 90 out of 100.
Where To Buy Jack Link’s Premium Cuts Peppered Beef Jerky
Look for this beef jerky at any grocery store or super center. It comes in a red, white, and black bag with a black square across the top front with the face of a cow inside. Plus, it has the black and white text. The bag also has a little window on the front that facilitates consumer scrutiny of the beef jerky inside.
References
- Beef Jerky on Wikipedia
- Black Pepper on Wikipedia
- Jack Link’s Website
- Maltodextrin on Wikipedia
- Sodium Nitrite on Wikipedia
Updates
- 2014-09-21: Added picture.