On road trips, I indulge in a guilty pleasure—jerky and meat sticks. They provide a protein hit and I love tooling down the road munching on these snacks. Of course, they’re not especially good for me. Enter The New Primal, a line of jerky, meat sticks and cooking/marinade sauces that contain no soy, no hormones or antibiotics and are made with 100% grass-fed beef and range-free turkey. These certified gluten-free snacks and sauces are also certified paleo for those following that diet plan.

In 2009, company owner Jason Burke (who bills himself as Primal’s Chief Hunter-Gatherer), decided to improve his health. He found that portable protein helped, but he couldn’t find protein snacks that weren’t loaded with junk. Three years later, he launched The New Primal with the mission to provide healthier alternatives.

RFT received a sampling of The New Primal’s jerky, meat sticks, and one of their cooking/marinade sauces.

The New Primal Jerky

Classic beef jerky balances tenderness and chewiness with big beef flavor.

Classic Beef Jerky. This jerky is made with grass-fed beef raised without hormones or antibiotics. The thick pieces are tender and chewy with just the right moistness and big beefy flavor. This is great jerky.

Spicy Beef Jerky. For those who like a little kick in their jerky, Spicy Beef Jerky comes with the same thick, beefy, moist pieces, but with notes of jalapeno that linger on the tongue. I appreciated that the heat in this jerky wasn’t over-the-top, but just enough to keep it interesting.

Classic Free-Range Turkey Jerky. The turkey jerky is saltier than the beef. In this one, you can taste the lemon and pineapple juice and the apple cider vinegar they marinate the turkey in.

Date & Rosemary Range-Free Chicken Jerky. This jerky was my least favorite. It has nice chewiness, but the texture is a little mealy and date flavor is muddy. This jerky would benefit from being a it sweeter.

Marinade & Cooking Sauce

New Primal Marinade and Cooking sauces can also be a finishing sauce.

The New Primal offers three different marinade/cooking sauces: Classic, Spicy, and Citrus Herb. We sampled the Classic Marinade & Cooking Sauce, which is made with organic coconut aminos (coconut flower blossom nectar, water and sea salt), apple cider vinegar, pineapple and lemon juice concentrate, garlic, onion, pepper, sea salt, paprika, and ginger. You can use these sauces as a marinade or as a cooking or finishing sauce.

We used the Classic Marinade & Cooking Sauce as a marinade and cooking sauce and found it interesting, complex, and quite tasty. The instructions say to soak protein for at least six hours in the marinade. I put three bone-in, skinless chicken thighs into the marinade, but then life got in the way. Instead of soaking for six hours, it soaked for two days! I cut the chicken off the bone into pieces and lightly stir-fried it and added it to a veggie stir-fry. Then, right before serving, I added some of the marinade to mirin (sweetened wine) and soy sauce to make a sauce. The result? Delicious! The chicken was moist with interesting sweet-fruity-gingery notes. And the resulting sauce was a perfect foil for the vegetables. We would definitely use Classic Marinade & Cooking Sauce both as a soak and as a sauce.

Meat Sticks

Commercial meat sticks, those ubiquitous little protein packs so readily found in convenience stores, certainly aren’t healthful. Most contain a boatload of salt (sodium), as well as soy, wheat, and corn as “meat fillers.” They usually made with the least desirable parts of  beef or mechanically separated chicken, the “pink stuff” found in chicken nuggets. They also contain sodium nitrite, a salt that preserves meat. The problem with nitrites is that when it’s heated above 266°F, it creates nitrosamines, or compounds carcinogenic to animals.

The New Primal offers a variety of flavors in jerky and meat sticks.

The New Primal meat sticks are a different animal, so to speak. The sticks are minimally processed and contain only natural ingredients. For instance, their Classic Beef Stick is made with grass-fed beef, honey, lemon peel, sea salt, encapsulated lactic acid, celery juice, garlic, white pepper, ginger, and black pepper in a collagen casing. (Encapsulated lactic acid acidifies the sausage and helps preserves it.) The Classic Beef actually tastes like beef with smoky notes.

They make a whole line of meat sticks, including Spicy Beef (same beefy flavor with notes of jalapeño) and Habanero Pineapple (fruity sweet-hot flavor); Classic and Cilantro Lime Turkey (good chewiness; cilantro lime offers subtle background lime notes); and even Uncured Bacon Pork (bacony goodness) and Pork Barbecue (tastes just like BBQed pork!).

Real bottom line: The New Primal allows those of us who love jerky and meat sticks to indulge in our guilty pleasure without the guilt. Minimally processed and containing only natural ingredients without all the “junk” found in most commercial jerky and meat sticks, The New Primal has elevated these protein-rich snacks to the healthful level. Their gluten-free marinade/cooking sauces, which contain no soy, dairy, added sugars or even oil, make a tasty addition to meat and vegetable dishes. – Bobbie Hasselbring, Editor Realfoodtraveler.com