sauces, salt, or overpowering spices with meat from grass-
fed animals; its own flavor will captivate you.
If you have never tasted game, make sure that your first
experience is a good one. When properly harvested,
cleaned, and cooked, game has rich, wonderful flavors with
overtones of wild herbs and berries that simply cannot be
duplicated with commercial meats. Some people are
reluctant to eat wild meats because they may taste too
“gamy.” This quality typically comes from animals that were
improperly dressed or incorrectly cooked. If you are trying
game meat for the first time, I recommend bison or elk
cooked medium rare so as not to dry it out. Both have a
flavor that is similar to beef, but richer and more savory.
One of my favorite Paleo treats is jerky, but not the kind
of jerky you find at convenience stores or supermarkets.
Because commercial jerky is laced with salt, sugar, nitrites,
and other non-Paleo additives, you will have to make your
own jerky. This is not an insurmountable task; my twelve-
year-old does it all the time. The only item that you will need
is a small food dehydrator, which can be purchased for forty
to sixty dollars from almost any commercial outlet offering
small appliances. You can try our favorite Paleo jerky
recipe in this chapter or experiment with your own
combinations of herbs and spices. Jerky is a high-protein,
low-fat food that comes in handy all day long to satisfy your
appetite.