I was looking on Pinterest for a Zero Carb pemmican recipe and was surprised to find there isn’t one. There are many recipes for “Pemmican”, but they are not Zero Carb traditional Pemmican. Traditional pemmican has 2 ingredients, dried lean meat and fat. The addition of other ingredients compromises the nutritional value as well as the shelf life.
Lex Rooker, who was a member of the old ZIOH forum and who I had the pleasure of meeting at one of our infamous Meat-ups in the Los Angeles area, created a very detailed pemmican making tutorial, complete with pictures. You can download his Pemmican tutorial here.
Lex also created a very detailed tutorial on how to make an inexpensive jerky drier out of a few household items. You can download the Jerky Drier PDF here.
I use my MasterBuilt Smoker to dry beef for pemmican. Just make sure you have enough air flow and don’t load it with too much meat or it won’t dry fast enough. I only load 2 racks at a time. I use a Ninja Master Prep to grind the dry beef.
Carolina, also a member of the old ZIOH forum, made these 2 fantastic instructional videos on how to make pemmican.
Pemmican is the perfect travel, hiking, camping, survival food. I like pemmican, but it is certainly an acquired taste, so you may want to experiment with it before your journey.
When going on long hikes Pemmican is an invaluable food source. You don’t have to pack cooking gear, plates, utensils, pots or pans. If you want hot food, you can always drop a chunk of pemmican in a mug of hot water with a bouillon cube or some dried herbs and sea salt, then it becomes a tasty hot soup. But, you will have to pack something to boil water for that.
Unfortunately, you cannot buy shelf stable Zero Carb Pemmican anywhere. You can buy salt free zero carb pemmican at US Wellness, but it has to be kept cold. Their processing does not completely take the moisture out of the meat, therefore it will spoil of not kept cold. It can go about day with no refrigeration. I keep them (sticks) in my freezer, I like the consistency better when they are frozen.
US Wellness is also a great source for beef tallow, for making pemmican.
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