If you believe red meat is unhealthy or bad for the environment skip reading this and go work on your critical thinking skills.
For everyone else, let’s chat about why you should be eating biltong - a traditional South African food; and how to make it.
First up, it’s not jerky.
Jerky is smoked, biltong is just dried (not cooked in any way).
And if you make it at home the only preservatives you use are salt (healthy) and apple cider vinegar (possible health benefits too).
So here are 5 reasons you should be eating it.
It’s high protein. Protein is arguably the most important macro nutrient (the other two being carbs and fats). It has a massive effect on your hunger levels (you’ll pretty much keep eating until you’ve satisfied your body’s protein requirement). And, no, it doesn’t ‘strain your kidneys’.
It’s not expensive. A common resistance to increasing protein foods is the expense. Plenty of you compare the price of, say, meat to something like a pasta. Don’t do this. Compare the price of the protein content of the meat to the price of the protein content in your pasta. Suddenly not so cheap, huh?
Keeps for a long time (and is low in *chemical* preservatives). When I was employed, my colleagues would laugh at the fact I kept meat (biltong) in my desk drawer for days. It doesn’t even have to be refrigerated. Of course, if you do refrigerate it, or even freeze it, it’ll last much longer.
Mastication. Our jaws are getting smaller. And this is causing all sorts of problems. One of the reasons for this is we’re eating soft, processed foods (“soft foods for soft people”). In fact, there are now products available to strengthen jaw. Unnecessary if you eat biltong regularly. This should be a major reason to give it to your kids!
Small volume. Typically you’ll lose half weight of your meat when you dry it. And since the protein content stays the same, you’ve effectively doubled the protein percentage. Basically, 200g of biltong will fill you up significantly.
Recipe for Biltong
You don’t need fancy air dryers or dehydrators to make your own biltong.
I made my own a dehydrator when I started making biltong: a big box, a light bulb, a small fan and a rod to hang the biltong to dry.
Each year I made the process simpler, cheaper, faster and easier.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Propel Perform to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.