Review : Primal Spirit Foods / Primal Strips

primal strips vegan jerky

I am not big on prepared snack foods but I have to admit, whenever we are heading out to the beach, we do drop by the local food store and pick up a few Primal Strips. For those of you not in the know, Primal Strips are vegan jerky. Packaged in aseptic individual servings, Primal Strips are convenient and full of protein. There’s about 10 grams of protein per serving. I’ve talked to a few vegetarian women who swore by them to keep their iron counts up during their pregnancy. Bindu’s pregnancy was such that I honestly couldn’t handle any meaty-ish proteins but now that she’s out, life’s back to normal and here I am, tasting 4 different Primal Strips for review!

Personally, I feel guilty consuming things in individual serving sizes due to concerns over environmental waste. My husband, not so much. He works in a hospital where he has to throw out about 2-5 surgical steel scissors a shift (amongst other things) so his take on saving the environment is: pretty hopeless. I think the Primal Strips wrappers can be recycled. Since we do a lot of home cooking, I don’t buy them regularly. But my daughter does really consider them a treat and my husband is always ready to show off his Primal Spirit.

I contacted them recently to see about doing a giveaway (hint hint) and Tulsi, the contact man, was super nice and sent me a ton of samples to review. Danka, Tulsi.

So…here we go! Ready yourself for the commercial because this is totally going to read like one. Sorry, I like their snacky product and that Tulsi guy seems really nice.

primal strips mesquite lime

My daughter’s favorite flavor is Mesquite Lime. She is going to turn 6 in a few days, so let’s begin with her pick. I admit, this one is my favorite flavor. I like the sour tang. As you can see from the pic above, Primal Strips is really working the texture point card. All of the flavors have a real pulled pork thing going on. I’ve never eaten pulled pork nor have I ever had meat jerky, so I don’t really have much to add in the comparison conversation. But I can speak from the vegetarian perspective that these are great little treats that stand on their own.

Hickory Smoked is actually a gluten free product. When I told that to my husband, his response was, “But how? It’s gluten.” Well, Hickory Smoked is all soy. The texture is just as enjoyable and not noticeably different than the seitan based versions. Black pepper and hickory smoke (duh) are dominant tastes. In all the flavors, I think I am tasting cinnamon (vegetarian spices are how the secret mixture is labeled on the ingredients list) but fennel is found in all of the varieties so maybe I am registering the fennel as cinnamon.

As expected, Thai Peanut is peanutty and the Thai basil really stands out. My baby loved this one.

Teriyaki is the most mild flavored Primal Strips. If you plan to use them in cooking, I would go with the Teriyaki strips since they seem the most adaptable and mellow.

Another thing I’ve always marveled over with the Primal Strips is they look so darn saucy in the package yet never make a mess when opened. My guess is this has to do with the aseptic packaging. I appreciate that clean up is nothing more than a few good licks of the fingers (bleah on that visual!).

yup. i covered it in chocolate and then sprinkled sea salt on top.

I’ve never cooked with Primal Strips before but, due to some reason I am not comfortable talking about right now, I’ve been thinking about it. Is that insane? I don’t know.

But let’s run down a few ideas as to how you can use your Primal Strips besides just biting into them straightaway.

–on a sandwich

–vegan twist on the chocolate covered bacon craze

–chop and throw in chili, sloppy joes, vegan meatloaf

–in tofu scramble

–add to hash browns

Okay. I’m at a loss. Any other ideas you can think of? What’s your experience with Primal Strips? Thumbs up or down?

And can you guess what tomorrow’s giveaway is?

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