Jerky = Bad

A few weekends ago, my boy and I decided to go camping. As a kid, I was in Brownies, Girl Guides, and Pathfinders (though I swear I wasn't a complete social misfit, really! Well, maybe a little bit), so I eventually became a pretty good camper. I know the proper way to build a fire and set up a tent and stay warm and all that jazz. Good lord do I have some camping horror stories though. Let's not get into that right now.

Anyhoo, my parents have a ton of camping equipment and supplies, but I live about six hours away from them now and have next to nothing of my own. Also, living downtown in our nation's capital leaves little opportunity for outdoor adventuring. Soooo Boy and I borrowed what we could from friends and then headed over to our local Mountain Equipment Co-op to purchase any remaining necessities. While perusing the camping foods aisle, he picked up a package of beef jerky for himself. I was jealous and figured I would have to content myself with chewing on a salted pleather handbag, but then saw a vegetarian version next to the beefy stuff! Behold, Tasty Eats Soy Jerky. They had a few different flavours, but I decided to go for the original version. There was a sticker placed on the package that said, "DELICIOUS!". The fact that this was not part of the original packaging should likely have been my first clue that the product might be anything but.

Let me describe my eating experience: Boy and I are at campsite. Both of us feel a bit snack-y, so Boy grabs his jerky and I grab mine. (That didn't sound right, did it. Moving along.) Tear open package. Pry chunk of product off of larger quasi-congealed chunk and stuff into mouth. Chew. Gag. Chew for another two minutes with tears in eyes. Swallow painfully. Listen to Boy laugh as he savours beefy alternative. Hand Boy soy jerky. Boy samples jerky with unremarkable expression on face and proceeds to eat entire package, then says, "It wasn't all that different from mine, really."

So maybe I just never liked any kind of jerky to begin with? I actually can't remember eating the meat kind before. I don't know; the real stuff looked and smelled better than mine did, in my opinion. Apparently the Tasty Eats version is low carb, low fat, and vegan, however. I could see where they were going with the chewy aspect of it, and the flavouring seemed well-intentioned (sort of barbecue-y and partly sweet, partly savoury), but something was just really, really off. I can't help but wonder what they have to do to the soy protein to turn it into this stuff. All pondering aside, I think I would have been better off with my salted handbag.

Product and nutrition info: http://www.tastyeats.com/index.cfm?page=products#original