Am I eating too much beef jerky?

I'm 56 years of age, 6"2, 205 lbs and work out regularly aerobically and with weights. I'm not into fad diets and believe that caloric moderation with an exercise regimen is the most sensible way to go.

Lately I've developed a real "taste" for beef jerky and have been eating quite a bit of it ( the packaged type) the last few weeks.
About 1/4 to 1/2 lb. per day lately. I'm trying to lose a bit more bodyfat and I find that the the jerky is filling and I'm less likely to snack on "junK" foods.

Beef jerky is high in protein, low in fat and seems pretty healthy except for the fact that it contains of sodium.

Any comments or feedback will be greatly appreciated.

I know that in the "Old West" dried meat was very popular. Of course, people generally didn't live to be over 55 anyway!

As a person becomes acclimated, the salt content of sweat drops a great deal. Conversely, a person who never perspires and then must do so profusely can lose a great deal of salt.

Unless you are measuring your sodium balance carefully, consuming extra salt can be hazardous. An acclimated individual will produce hypotonic perspiration, and thus his sodium load will rise with exertion, rather than fall. Adding salt to this can cause hypernatremia and/or diuresis.

It's important to drink fluids that contain salt in the same concentration as the perspiration you are losing, no more and no less.
So if your sweat is hypotonic (and it usually is), you don't want to drink anything saltier than that.

"I looked up cinnabar and cormorant and couldn't find either of them as spices. Did you spell them right? Cormorant is a bird and cinnabar is mercury (although Este Lauder has a mixture which they call cinnabar)."

I think you've both just been smoked. Best non-sequitur I've seen in some time.

Right. And avoid, at all costs, cinnabar and cormorant. Those spices will terminate your uvula if you're a woman or it'll wither your prosthesis if you're a man. Not much worse than that could happen to a person. Well, except if you listen to crap like this. You'll get hearing aids.

Beef jerky (and all jerky) is generally considered to be strips of lean (fatty meats become rancid) whole muscle (rather than pounded or ground and formed meats) marinated in a highly seasoned marinade and dried as strips. Typically, it gets down to around 30% of its original weight. The sugar, salt and pepper used to season the meat have antibacterial properties that help preserve it.

Low salt jerky can be made, but the flavor isn't very bold. Pemmican is usually thought of as pounded or shredded meats mixed with other ingredients.

Except for the obvious fact that you're never met me and the other fact that you're a shitwit, you sure are a shitwit.

Get troll lessons from somebody better than you at it. Say any mild-mannered 9 year old.

I eat the dried packaged variety, not Slim Jims. Reading from the label on the "Great Value" brand from Wal-Mart:

1 oz. contains:

calories-80 total fat-1 g., saturated fat 0g cholesterol 25mg sodium-370 mg.
total carbohydrates-7g.

Doe generously answered but with some (alas) pitiful American site for pemmican:

American pemmican?! Pas possible! Moji Cris Tabernac! Sacre bleu!
http://www.metisresourcecentre.mb.ca/history/hunt.htm

Canadian Eh! Pemmican
Approx. 8 ounces home made moose, bison or beef jerky
1 cup dried Saskatoon berries (or blueberries)
1 cup unsalted sunflower seeds or crushed nuts of any kind
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup natural peanut or almond butter
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

1. This recipe uses nut butter. The Metis hunters used bison fat.
2. Grate the jerky, then grind or pound the dried meat to a mealy powder
3. Add the dried berries and seeds or nuts. Mash.
4. Heat the honey, nut butter and cayenne just until softened.
5. Mix all together and turn into a pan.
6. When cool cut into bars and store well wrapped in plastic.

Portable Pemmican http://www.greatcanadianrivers.com/rivers/quapple/ quapple-home.html

Modern-day out-trippers who rely on specialty freeze-dried camp meals may be surprised to learn that 18th and 19th century voyageurs carried their own lightweight, calorie-packed convenience food. Thousands of years before the invention of commercial food preservation methods, aboriginal Americans were skillfully preparing a highly-nourishing, long-lasting and easily portable food known as pemmican.

Vacuum-Packed: Derived from a Cree word that originally described the preparation of bone marrow grease, the dietary staple of the fur trader was an ingenious combination of dried lean meat (primarily bison, but also moose, elk or deer), wild berries (such as Saskatoon berries) and suet or bone marrow grease. Originally preserved in animal bladders or intestines, pemmican prepared for European traders was stored in bison-skin bags called "parfleches" that were sealed with melted tallow. As the skin bags dried and shrank, they compressed the pemmican mixture and created a vacuum seal, rendering the contents virtually un-spoilable.

A Well-Balanced Meal: Highly-concentrated pemmican lightened the load of voyageur canoes, with only 1 kilogram providing the nutritional equivalent of up to 5 kilograms of fresh meat. In addition to the protein and fat contained in the mixture, vitamins supplied by the berry component helped to prevent scurvy. Greens, roots and flavourings such as wild onions could be added to enhance the pemmican, when it was made into a soup or stew.
Pemmican Gourmet: At the height of the western fur trade, pemmican production was an important First Nations industry. The Hudson's Bay
Company paid a premium price for the highest quality "sweet pemmican," made exclusively from the leanest red meat of bison cows and young bulls.

You will probably want to advise Mark (the recipe originator) of the error of his recipe and your willingness to broadcast that all over the internet without substantiation.

You know, for a shitwit, you sure are a shitwit. Beyond the fact that there's no such thing as coliander, you sure are a shitwit. If you meant "coriander" (which is usually understood to be the seeds from the same plant we also call cilantro) combining it with pepper and vinegar will make part of the normal seasoning for salsa and a whole big bunch of other foods.

Really, do get remedial help with your trolling. It's rather weak as it stands. And as it stands, it sags a good bit.

Would suggest you simply ignore that poor soul in the dark corner over there.

Meanwhile, I will continue to pray for him in Christ's name.

Servant to the humblest person in the universe,

Not really. Ignorance does. Vulgarity does. And ignorant vulgarity most of all.

I don't *doubt* your word. That assumes a question. I discount it entirely. Perhaps you can offer a citation that documents this desperate hazard. Right.

Your message:

This is either profoundly stupid nonsense that you actually believe or it's profoundly stupid nonsense you're trolling with. Either way, it marks you as a fool.

The combination of coriander, pepper and vinegar is extremely common in virtually all of the important cuisines of the world.

Find something to do that doesn't make you look quite so dimwitted.
Just a friendly suggestion.

<LOL> Persistence is not necessarily a virtue when it's employed to demonstrate stupidity.

Um, it was a joke. To intensify and help memorialize the idiocy of
"coliander" from the fool called "Not Stabbem, someone else" who posted the TROLLING stupidity above.

Recipe for biltong (Afrikaner beef jerky). After you've made this for a bit you can fool around with types of vinegar and spices to your taste.

You need:

an electric fan a light
1 kg meat: moose, venison, beef

(for the metric challenged, one kg is 2.2 pounds). vinegar less than a table spoon of course salt (or Kosher salt)

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup whole coriander (bulk food store)
1/2 teaspoon pepper string

Wash the meat.

Cut the meat at an angle against the grain into about one inch strips.

Sprinkle vinegar over the meat

Place the coriander in a bag and lightly crush the whole coriander so that the effect of the coriander will be greater.

Make the "biltong mix" by combining the course salt, brown sugar, coriander, black pepper.

Dip the meat into the "biltong mix" until all the mix is used up.

Place the meat in a tray for a few hours, or over night, in the fridge.

After a few hours drain blood.

Dip the biltong quickly into a water/vinegar mixture to remove surface salt.

Hang the biltong by making a very small incission through the slice of meat with a knife about an inch from the end of the meat.

Cut the string into about 10 inch strips which are placed through the meat and tied to form a loop.

Hang the biltong in a place not to far from an electrical outlet by taking the loop of string and place it on the hook or nail or hangar or whatever device you have created to suspend the meat.

To dry the meat turn on the light(regular light bulb) and the fan and leave for about 4-7 days depending on humidity, temperature and taste.

This is more or less from http://www.markblumberg.com/biltong.html

I have other recipes for Biltong, and if you're interested, my
Kookum's (grandmother in Cree) recipe for pemmican, a dried meat staple used by Metis fur traders and voyageurs.

This will be a lot better for you than what you've been buying. Kookum lived to be 96.

As Chung is unable to. Oh, he doesn't reply directly to me. Not a chance. He waits for others to do so and that way he adds his comments that way. He makes a big point of not replying to me. Mostly because he really can't. It's that problem he has with facts and truth...

Let Andrew "Lucifer" Chung bring light to the dark corners...