Sunday, September 7, 2008

OSTRIM Jerkee - Pepper

OSTRIM Jerkee - PepperOSTRIM is the brand name for an ostrich/beef blend of jerky, produced by Protos, Inc. of Greensburg, PA. The product has been on the market since 1997.

It's marketed as a sports snack, and advertised to fitness buffs and body builders. You typically find it in stores that offer healthy foods, vitamins, and diet aids.

The package says it's "95% Fat Free" and that it's a "High Protein Snack". The company's website shows photos of young good looking men and women exercising and buring off fat. Even the name, "OSTRIM" contains the word "trim" suggesting it's something to keep you looking your best.

Interestingly, OSTRIM is probably the only meat jerky I've seen thus far containing non-fat dry milk.

Ingredients

Beef, ostrich, filtered water, nonfat dry milk, and contains 2% or less of salt, citric acid, potassium chloride, potassium lactate, natural flavor, sodium, erythorbate, sodium nitrite, sucralose.

Taste

It has something of a salty taste right away, as well as a smoky taste. There is also a slight bit of a tangy taste in the chew. Finally, I can get a wee bit of the natural meat flavors.

The predominant taste in this is the salt and smoke. It's not overly salty, but enough to drown out every other taste in this. The smokiness is mild.

The natural meat flavors are hard to find in this. I pretty much had to think about what I was tasting in order to find the meat flavors. It's easy to confuse the smoke flavor for being a meat flavor.

As a pepper flavored variety, I don't taste any pepper. It's worth noting that the package does not describe this as "peppered", but rather "pepper flavor". But it might be better to advertise this as a "salty & smoky" variety instead. Perhaps if I compared this to their regular variety, I could find the pepper flavor.

This jerky tastes very much like your garden variety chopped & formed jerky, except it's rather limited to a salt and smoke flavor. It's not a bad tasting product, but not very inspiring either.

Meat Consistency

This is a chopped & formed jerky, molded into strips of about 10" in length and about 1/2 inch in width.

It's rather dry, and somewhat brittle. You couldn't bite through this like a meat stick, it's too hard. Instead, grab the end with your canine tooth, and pull the stick away. It breaks off somewhat easy.

For being chopped & formed, it's got a meaty texture. I couldn't find any tiny bits of hard stuff like ground bone. And it's rather dry to the touch as opposed to being greasy like other chopped & formed jerky.

Overall, the meat consistency is good for being a chopped & formed product. I'd call it great if it were softer, and easier to tear off.

OSTRIM Jerkee - Pepper

OSTRIM Jerkee - Pepper
Product Value

I paid $1.75 for a 1.05oz package at a Smoothie King in Murrieta, CA. That works out to a price of $1.67 per ounce, putting this in the average price range for jerky.

For general jerky snacking purposes, it has a so-so value. It doesn't offer much on taste aside for salty and smoky, very little meat flavor, and somewhat tough to tear apart. It offers only a little snackability.

As a "health jerky", or as a low fat, high protein snack, it has a so-so value as well. If you look at the nutrition facts below, you'll see that it does offer some advantages over most standard jerky, but not a significant advantage. In fact, if you compare this to Wal-Mart's own store brand of peppered beef jerky, you'll see that it's comparable with OSTRIM, with Wal-Mart being lower in fat, but higher in carbs, the same cholesterol, the same protein, and higher in calories. But Wal-Mart is twice as cheap, and tastes better.

Rating

I'm giving this a fair rating.

What this pepper flavor of OSTRIM Jerkee provides is a good taste of salt and smoky flavor. While it doesn't taste bad, it doesn't offer much great taste either. It doesn't even live up to its "pepper flavor" advertisement.

Even as a healthy alternative to standard jerky, it's weak. You can find plenty of beef jerky out there that will provide even less fat per serving, the same protein, and the same cholesterol. I do agree however, the OSTRIM is very low in carbs, about 2gm versus 3-6gm for standard jerky, and lower in calories than most jerky. But is that enough to justify the lack of taste?

That's why OSTRIM is marketed as a sports snack and muscle builder. You're not supposed to like the way it tastes, you're just supposed to eat it and feel as if you're doing something good. Personally, I'll take that bag of Wal-Mart Peppered Beef Jerky instead.

As for my beer recommendation? Come on, you don't suck down a beer after working out do you? Ok, how about a Bud Light Lime?

Rating: Fair

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1 comment:

  1. Trying to eat this jerky made the metal plate in my head vibrate uncontrollably. I give it a good rating.

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