People’s Choice Beef Jerky – Old Fashioned – Original – Sugar Free, Zero Carb, 16g Protein, Keto Friendly – Dry Texture – Made in USA – 1 Pound (16 oz) Bag

I’m a total jerky connoisseur, and this one beats them all. I have People’s Choice Old Fashioned Original on Subscribe & Save twice a month, and I’m genuinely pumped every time it shows up in the mail. The dry texture is exactly how real jerky should be — not soft, not sticky, just perfectly classic. The flavor is clean, savory, and incredibly satisfying without sugar or carbs. Zero sugar, zero carbs, 16g of protein, and keto-friendly? Yes please. Plus they leave some fat on, which ads a boost of beautiful flavor. Made in the USA, high quality, and consistently delicious. If you like authentic, old-school beef jerky and care about ingredients, this is the one. I won’t be without it. If I could survive on Beef Jerky alone, this would be the only food i would eat. For those that crave jerky, who appreciate the need for protein, who need to it make workouts count, give this a try. Also, all jerky has a certain amount of sodium, so I eat this after I work out, after I drink quite a lot of water, which dilutes the sodium and the inflammatory effect it can have. I eat in 6-8 ounce servings, which helps keep my energy level boosted all day, and my protein intake on par with what my body requires.

TL;DR: This stuff is amazingly good. If you love a good steak, you'll love this jerky! Beef flavor up front and on the finish. Addictively craveable! BUYER: I'm NOT a jerky connoisseur. I've snacked on Jack Links for a decade or better without complaint. I am, however, a lover of fine steaks. I always assumed jerked meat couldn't compare to a fresh, succulent, woodfire-grilled, medium-rare ribeye. Boy, was I wrong. O_O SUMMARY: This "old fashioned" beef jerky, without any preservatives or the typical additives (like sugar, soy sauce, or worchestershire), stands head-and-shoulders above any other I've ever tried. You have to try it! FLAVOR: A fine au jus. Chewing this jerky is like devouring a fine prime rib dinner. In all sincerity, I joked with my prime rib-loving mother-in-law that a stick of this jerky and a little dab of horseradish on the tongue and you'd have prime rib in a bag. It doesn't have the overly salty, sweet, or peppery flavor of other jerkies I've eaten. The first bite made me think it might be under-salted, maybe TOO simple for me. Then, as I chewed, the flavors came out and holy cow (maybe literally?) that's some damn fine beef flavor right there. Just the right balance of... everything. TEXTURE: Dry apparently doesn't mean tough or unchewable. Another surprise! I've had lots of homemade jerkies (mostly venison, to be fair) that had all the tenderness of a truck tire. The chew-it-and-spit-out-the-flavorless-wad-ten-minutes-later sort. This ain't that. You can break it in half because of the dryness, but you can also bite through it with relative ease and it's more tender than an overcooked steak. So... don't let this deter you if you're a "wet" jerky fan like I was. HEALTH: Diabetes runs in my family. My wife's family, too. We don't do keto, but we do try to opt for low-carb, low-sugar snacking options. This jerky hits every one of those points without even trying. It's lean meat, too, so all the better. Admittedly, I actually love the little fatty bits that appear here and there in the bag. For the record, no mold was detected in my shipment, but I'd be genuinely surprised if the company (a small, family-owned business) didn't make right a bag that had gone bad. VALUE: At $30 a bag, my wife gagged a bit on the price of a 1 lb bag (as did I, at first), but what I expected to be a typical convenience store handful turned out to be more like a Family Size from Costco. I was seriously impressed by the size of the bag. I'm used to "premium" items coming in small, fancy packages. I guess I didn't consider that very dry jerky means MORE MEAT and LESS WATER. Holy steak strips, Batman. I don't know what the reduction ratio of a slab of juicy beef to a jerky like this must be, but I figure there's at least a good 5 lbs of proper beef condensed into this giant bag of meat snacks. In my opinion, even disregarding the vastly superior flavor, this bag is worth its price tag. ANNECDOTE: I brought maybe an ounce of People's Choice to work yesterday as a midmorning desk snack, but forgot to snag another few strips today before heading to the office. Instead I pulled out my old Jack Link's Peppered and ate a few of those. Man, I can taste Salt, Soy Sauce, Black Pepper, and nothing else. It's just an assault of frontloaded flavors... and the strips are both thicker and harder to chew. The contrast is startling. I've already ordered another bag of People's Choice Old Fashioned (and a free smaller bag of Secra something-or-other) directly from the manufacturer and am seriously thinking of throwing out the rest of this Jack Links. I'm not sure I can go back to prison gruel now that I've tasted ambrosia.

Honestly and objectively terrible beef jerky. Disclaimer, I purchased this item and the first bag I received was literally rancid, super fatty meat which had gone off in storage (jerky is generally done with lean beef for this reason, the beef has a long shelf life but the fat can go rancid). Bag smelled nauseating when opened. I got in touch with the manufacturer and they kindly sent me a replacement. I fed it to the neighborhood racoons. Please note: I wouldn't write a review like this for a one-off. This is based on the second bag, though I am taking into account the miss on the first one. Like, if the second was good, then it would be a non-factor, but since they're 0 for 2 and it's expensive jerky, yeah... Texture: Ok so I'm a 'saddle bag jerky' guy. I like a dry, "chew on it for a bit jerky". This is not that. It's meat potato chips. They actually crunch and crumble into unpalatable particles which then don't really have a chew. I would actually prefer a soft jerky to whatever this is. It's...unsettling. Meat is oily/greasy to the touch, leaves nasty residue on your hands. Flavor: Also bad. Like you can tell there were some seasonings there but you don't get much of anything. No smoke flavor or taste, just sort of a hint of 'orginal' generic jerky flavor. Aroma: It's off...not as bad as rancid bag one, but it just straight up doesn't smell like something you'd want to eat. Just bad. I ended up soaking it all in water to wash off the salt, re-dried it in my dehydrator, and tried to use it for dog treats. He's not a fan either. Like if a dog won't eat it I don't think you should be selling it for humans. Neighborhood racoons seem to like it though so I'm glad I spent $40 feeding 'em. This is just bad jerky, but if you're looking for an expensive way to feed the trash pandas then this is your product!

The best, simply put. Great natural taste, not artificially flavored, spiced or salty. Texture has a nice chew factor, doesn't break your teeth and is more dry and meaty. I love it.

This is my favorite beef jerky but it does have a flaw. I *love* the dry texture, where you have to chew the flavor out of it. And it's such a clean flavor. Salty, a little peppery I think. My whole mouth is engaged. My problem is the presence of hard strings on some pieces. Not sure if it's muscle casing or whatever, but they're really tough and generally you can't bite them off. They're just kinda disgusting to get in your mouth. I tend to pull them out of the pieces as I eat. I've also had success cutting the pieces into shorter chunks (< 1 inch) which makes these blend in a bit better. If this was fixed, I would just stop trying other jerkys, this is by far the best for me.

This beef jerky is the real McCoy. Not the moist stuff that needs refrigeration, like the most popular brand. This is the stuff the people before us would've enjoyed for thousands of years past. Simple ingredients, lean beef dried to absolute PERFECTION. And it's shelf stable once opened. You don't even need to refrigerate it. True survival food! So far I've tried the old fashioned plain, the green hatch chile, and the carne seca. All have been delicious. I've got 5 more pounds on the way now. I am hooked!

This is how I like my jerky, dry, tough but chewy, savory...AND NO BLOODY DAMN SUGAR!!!! I hate all these mass produced sugary jerky’s, can’t stand them. I also hate their plastic rubbery texture. This jerky on the other hand is what real cowboys and vaqueros ate in the Wild West. This is old school stuff. That’s how I make my homemade jerky, but I just don’t have the time to prep and dry. $30 sounds like a lot, but you get a full pound of jerky savory goodness. Worth every penny. Will definitely buy again. 5 stars, A+.... ***UPDATE*** After ordering this twice before, and it was delicious, the third time was not the charm however, it was the total opposite, a curse. This time around the beef jerky had tons of fat. It was nearly inedible. I had to trim the pieces in order to enjoy the good parts. But I asked myself, why in the hell do I have to trim fat from this $30 bag for? I won’t pay this much for subpar untrimmed jerky. I mean, really, doesn’t this company have any type of quality control? I wanted to give it one star, but since my first two orders were great, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. I will order a fourth bag, and see how that jerky is, as it will be my last final rating of this product. For now, it has be downgraded from 5 starts to 3 stars.

This jerky is reminiscent of the sort I used to carry years ago on long hikes. I experienced no carb highs and crashes, just sustained energy accompanied by a longer period of feeling full. I've now removed all sugar and grain from my diet for required and personal reasons. That's been a good move for me, but it's not a lifestyle change that offers a breadth of relatively appealing snack options that don't require 45 minutes to prepare. This version of People's Choice Beef Jerky I can snack on straight out of the bag. I think it's grand, and clearly many others who've written reviews here do, too. But there are also several categories of negatives I'd like to address, because some of the negatives are actually positives, some can be avoided by reading the product description, some can be explained through general knowledge of what ingredients are. * "It's dry." I've always thought beef jerky was supposed to be mostly dry, but not completely dry. It's nice to have just enough moisture to keep chewing on a piece (as you would gum) to reap the flavor rewards. That's one of jerky's neat benefits. But if you're upset it's "dry," check out the product description. I see no misrepresentation of general moisture content there. * "It's not tough enough" or "It pulls apart too easily." The jerky in my bag wasn't easy to pull or even bend apart against the grain. With the grain, pulling was easier, but I'd expect that. My teeth played tug often enough, and I must have terribly weak hands, because I couldn't make one full strip of jerky rip with and against the grain into a stack of pieces. I could, however, cut it into a stack of pieces with a knife. If really, really tough, hard-to-separate jerky is what you're looking for, then this version might not be for you. * "It's too greasy" or "It's fatty." I wasn't constantly wiping my fingers on a towel to remove a greasy coating. In fact, I didn't have to do that once. I found it pretty difficult to visually distinguish much fat in the product. That said, fat is what helps impart flavor to meat, and all fats tend to feel greasy. Nicely marbled beef is far preferable to cuts with little fat. You'd hope there was something of fat left in a dried meat product if you want some flavor. The product label pictured above says there are 2.5 grams total fat in each serving. A serving of classic Lay's Potato Chips contains 10 grams total fat. "Greasy" is a subjective sensation, but still, it's no trouble to check how much objective fat is in a product. * "There's no pepper in this 'peppered' jerky." Well, there's no ground black peppercorn in this peppered version. However, there is paprika, and a nice dose of it. Paprika is a fine powder made from plants in the pepper family. Think bell pepper, red pepper. Different paprikas produce different tastes. This jerky has a spicy quality. In the plant world, there are peppers, and there are peppers, and then there are more peppers. The ingredients list usually tells you which basic sort of pepper you'll find in the product. My personal "complaints"? This product is worth all the pennies. My pocket book just wishes it cost fewer pennies, because I plan to keep ordering. Oh, and there was some spice residue left on my plate after munching. Why couldn't all that tastiness stay on the strip? ;)