Great Value Sweet & Hot Beef Jerky I bought 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 barely warm at first bite. But the spice becomes more apparent a minute or two into chewing it. It’s not as sweet however, as the Jack Link’s Peppered Beef Jerky I recently reviewed. But in its own way, this beef jerky is really very good, especially given its somewhat cheaper Great Value price ant its slow-coming, subtle heat taste.
This is a low-fat, low-carb snack food. But don’t get silly by overeating it, as it still contains considerable sodium as well at nitrites. But for an easy-to-store snack at work or on a long hike into the hills, this Great Value Sweet & Hot Beef Beef Jerky is an excellent food accessory. 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.
Its smoked beef strips are long, extra thick, and extra chewy. The smoke taste by far rules in the overall taste, overshadowing the warm kick significantly. This tastes quite much like your usual smoked and dried beef snack food. The strips have a deep red appearance, and when held up to a white light, look a very bright red. Indeed, this meat was quite fresh when dried.
Benefits, Pros, Advantages, and Features
- This jerky is not as sweet as Jack Link’s Peppered beef jerky that I recently reviewed, though some sweetness is apparent and seems to grow stronger as I ate down into the bag.
- Since these beef pieces are thicker and longer, this food requires more time and exertion to swallow. So it encourages us to eat more slowly, as nutritionists prefer.
- This beef jerky is moderately spiced and smoked, on par with other traditional beef jerky recipes. Though the label gives up no clues as to the actual spices used herein, the most prominent spice I suspect, is some kind of pepper. Yet I find no little pepper fragments, sticking on each meat slice. So an extract of some sort was likely used in marinating the meat before drying I’d venture.
- The mild spice flavor remains in the mouth and on the lips for less time than some of the spicier jerky brands.
- 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 has been a well-like staple due in part to its durability in hot climates. Military folks make this snack part of their customary back pack food rations when heading into the heat of battle. Beef jerky lacks crunch, so can be quietly eaten. Plus, its salt helps replace that lost from the body through sweating.
- No bone fragments in this snack to crack your teeth. Great Value does an excellent job of disposing all that unwanted material. No big chunks of fat either. The meat has a consistently lean, red look.
- Great Value Sweet & Hot Beef Jerky has a pleasant smoked beef aroma that duplicates the actual taste pretty exactly, except for the modest kick. So smelling this seasoned beef indeed encourages the mouth to water, as the scent forecasts the awesome taste experience to follow.
- This 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 5 grams, and this mildly sweet snack is high in protein at 14 grams per serving. It’s a low-fat, low-carb, high-protein taste treat with a small but nonetheless haunting bite.
- I had no trouble 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.
- The ingredients list is smaller on this jerky product than on others I’ve reviewed. It appears that Great Value attempted to get back to the basics when they devised this sweet and hot recipe. They omitted the maltodextrin as well as the sodium erythorbate that’s so commonly found in other beef jerky products.
Disadvantages, Cons, Problems, and Concerns
- I don’t care for the sweetness in this product. But it can be tolerated, as it’s rather weak. But at least, to get that sweetness, they did not use any high fructose corn syrup.
- 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 get out.
- Jerky is generally a highly processed snack food, But this one has fewer of those many-syllable man-made chemicals. So I feel better about eating this particular processed food.
- This product is also somewhat high in total sodium at 540 milligrams per serving, though it’s not the highest I’ve seen. Nonetheless, this sodium amount makes the grade of this product, a once-in-a-while-only enjoyment, though its deliciously satisfying sweet and salty spice, smoke, and beef flavors might induce you to eat it more often than you’d like. Yet if you’re working in steamy hot environments, eating this a few times as you complete your tasks would help refurbish your body salt and quell your hunger too.
Ingredients
Beef, water, sugar. Less than 2% of salt, flavoring, monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium nitrite. Allergy Warning: 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.
- Polyunsaturated fat: 0 grams.
- Monounsaturated fat: 0 grams.
- Cholesterol: 25 milligrams, 8% DV.
- Sodium: 540 milligrams, 23% DV.
- Potassium: 210 milligrams, 6% DV.
- Total carbohydrate: 5 grams, 2% DV.
- Dietary fiber: 0 grams, 0% DV.
- Sugars: 4 grams.
- Protein: 14 grams.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Calcium: 0% DV.
- Folic acid: 0%.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Iron: 4% DV.
Product Rating
I’d recommend highly this Great Value Sweet & Hot Beef Jerky given its mostly healthy nutritional values, its shorter list of flavorings and preservatives, it’s somewhat cheaper cost, and it’s moderate to low sweetness. I’d rate this snack food at 95 out of 100.
Where To Buy Great Value Sweet & Hot Beef Jerky
Look for this beef jerky exclusively at most any Walmart food store. It comes in a white bag with a rust-colored strip across the front with the face of a cow inside that strip. The bag also has the blue and white text, that appears on most every Great Value product label. There’s 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.
- 2012-05-09: Originally published.