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

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_OSUMMARY: 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.

**update!!**I really need to update my review due to this company reaching out to me. Talk about great customer service this company not only reached out to me because of my previous review and unsatisfaction but they also sent me a new fresh bag of their jerky because they were really disappointed in my previous review. It says a lot about a company for reaching out and making everything right and I have to say this new bag of jerky they sent me is just as good if not better than my first bag. I was set on not buying it again but after this experience I must say I am a Peoples choice jerky lover all the way and can't wait to order my next batch. Dont be afraid to try this because if you are not happy they will make it right if given the chance!First review- I bought 2 one lb bags of the original. When I tried the first it was delicious tasted like a steak with delicious au jus flavor. The texture was like other reviews had said not too dry and not too soft it was just right. I took it to work and let co-workers try it some were saying it was the best they ever had.Now let's get to the 2nd bag. So disappointed! It was nothing like the first bag it was way over dry and no flavor. It was like taking spaghetti out of a box and chewing on it. Was extremely dry and brittle, tasteless that is the reason for the 3 stars. Had the 2nd bag been like the first I would've rated 5 stars and bragged but the inconsistencies for the price just isn't worth it.

To be fair , they give a "disclaimer" that their product is dry and TOUGH. If the maker was equally fair the package would suggest that this product be used "For Display Only" , perhaps to "stage" a kitchen for a real estate open house.You know how dieting people say, " easting & digesting a cucumber uses more calories than it provides ?This product is EVEN BETTER !THIS is the ultimate diet food ! It certainly has many more calories than a cucumber ; but requires ALL of your strength to try and chew ; and in the end , you can't ,and spit it out.(*They should actually put a bikini on the package.)I gave some to my dogs since it's against my nature to throw "good" (*ahem) food in the garbage.Not dissimilar from the aforementioned cucumber analogy : my dogs brought it to the trash.Worse than merely being a net-negative with regard canine nutrition ; they're rethinking that historic "man's best friend" relationship .....and I've suffered a humiliating loss of gastronomic credibility with them.(** You DO know that dog's often eat their own vomit , right ? They have no gag reflex - it takes medicated eye-drops to get them to puke. When hungry enough they will eat their own poop......in extreme cases : even their weaker family members. But they won't.eat.this. )No Conflict of Interest or bias : I am not in a competing snack business. I do not know the owner of this company(* so he absolutely did not steal my girlfriend or beat me up 40yrs ago in High School ) I love Los Angeles.The logo font they chose is very appealing. Just the right amount of "negative space" on the packaging.For lockdown-entertainment I ordered every single high end Jerky and (the new craze) BILTONG.....and the SECOND-worst of the 21 assorted styles , flavors and brands ....actually , there was no second-anything. Like romance or pizza or motorcycles - they were all just varying degrees of good2great. Except this.In school we all learned how terrible it was that unlike Native Americans who used every sliver : bored white men on trains used to shoot buffalo / bison for target practice , leaving the entire mighty and valuable animal to rot and go to waste.I'm both an animal-lover and conservationist : but I'd bet that somewhere in Bovine Heaven , the steers who provided the meat for this product are lamenting this insult to their fatal "injury" , and would have so rather have provided the coyotes , vultures and insects with one of the best things they've ever eaten - instead of providing me with one of the worst.While this review may seem over the top or whimsical - it's actually as kind and gentle as I could make it.