Great Value Peppered Beef Jerky I happened across at Walmart while gathering up other beef snack products for review. I’ve since tasted pieces from a jumbo-sized 6.2 ounce 176 grams bag, and think this beef jerky is rather hot and really good, especially given its somewhat cheaper price. 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. This is a low-fat, low-carb snack food as well. But don’t go loco eating it, as it still contains considerable sodium as well at nitrites. But for an easy-to-store snack at work or on a long bus ride, this Great Value 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 spicey snack food.
Benefits, Pros, Advantages, and Features
- This jerky is not as sweet as the Sweet Baby Ray’s original beef jerky that I recently reviewed, though some sweetness can be detected behind the peppery kick flavor.
- 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 makes this beef jerky stand out from the not-so-heavily-spiced beef sticks and other beef jerkies. Though the label does not say specifically, the most prominent spice herein, is black pepper. In fact, the little spice fragments, sticking on each meat slice, look a lot like black pepper, matching its 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.
- Beef jerky is well-known for its durability in hot climates, as military men and women make beef jerky part of their usual back pack food rations when heading for the battlefield. It lacks crunch, so can be eaten quietly. Plus, the salt within helps replace salt lost through sweating by the soldiers.
- No bone fragments in this snack to crack your teeth. Great Value does an excellent job of disposing all that unwanted material.
- Great Value Peppered Beef Jerky has a pleasant, but not so subtle pepper aroma that duplicates the actual taste pretty exactly. So smelling this strongly spiced beef indeed encourages the mouth to water, as the scent forecasts the awesome taste experience to come.
- This Great Value 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 14 grams per serving. It’s a low-fat, low-carb, high-protein taste treat with a lingering bite.
- I had no trouble working the resealable bag were encountered. 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, Cons, Problems, and Concerns
- I wish other stores besides Walmart sold this product.
- Like most products of this type, this beef jerky leaves little stringy pieces stuck in the teeth quite often that require brushing or flossing to expunge.
- The burning pepper flavor remains in the mouth and on the lips for several minutes after I finish eating a pepper-coated strip.
- Store-brands of beef jerky like Great Value, 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 630 milligrams per serving. This sodium amount makes the grade of this product, a once-in-a-while-only enjoyment, though its deliciously satisfying pepper spice, smoke, and beef flavors might induce you to eat it more often than desired. Yet if you’re working in hot environments, eating this a few times throughout your workday would help refurvish your body salt and quell your hunger too.
Ingredients
Beef, water, sugar. Less than 2% of salt, spices, dried soy sauce (wheat, soybeans, salt), flavoring, maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, hydrolyzed corn protein, sodium erythorbate, paprika, sodium nitrite. Allergy Warning: Contains: wheat and soy.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving size: 1 ounce, 28 grams. Servings per container: 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.
- Polyunsaturated fat: 0 grams.
- Monounsaturated fat: 0 grams.
- Cholesterol: 25 milligrams, 8% DV.
- Sodium: 630 milligrams, 26% DV.
- Potassium: 180 milligrams, 6% DV.
- Total carbohydrate: 4 grams, 1% DV.
- Dietary fiber: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Sugars: 4 grams.
- Protein: 14 grams.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Calcium: 0% DV.
- Folic acid: 0% DV.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Iron: 6% DV.
Product Rating
I’d recommend highly this Great Value Peppered Beef Jerky given its mostly healthy nutritional values, it’s somewhat cheaper cost, and it’s lower sweetness. I’d rate this snack food at 94 out of 100.
Where To Buy Great Value Peppered Beef Jerky
Look for this beef jerky exclusively at any Walmart grocery store or super center. It comes in a white bag with a brown strip across the front with the face of a cow inside that brown strip, and it has the blue and white text, that appears on most every Great Value product label. The bag also has a little window on the front that facilitates consumer inspection of the beef jerky inside.
References
Revision History
- : Moved this post to the Tom’s Diet Quest blog, added whitespace, adjusted ad placement, and tweaked the content.
- 2012-05-08: Originally published.