Chatting It Up With Autumn Smith on the OptimizePaleo Podcast

Last year, Autumn Smith of Paleo Valley hunted me down on Facebook to send me some free beef sticks. They were good. I think she tried to get me on their podcast, but it didn’t really get arranged until I met them in person at Paleo f(x).

I was on the hunt for a free lunch in the exhibitor hall, pieced together by dozens of free samples. Paleo Valley had an exhibitor booth, and they gave me more of their beef sticks. I think they said something about eating them on the plane or something like that, but I ate them all right there. Boom. I had a free lunch.

But they were also fun to talk to. They lured me into the podcast with the incredibly amusing fact that Chas, Autumn’s husband, edits out all the “ums” and “uhhs” from their guests to make them sound smarter. They said they probably wouldn’t have to do that for me, but I just fantasized of how many “ums” and “uhhs” I could slide in to torture Chas. Alas, I’m not that mean, and it didn’t happen. But we hit it off and I was hooked.

So, here’s the podcast. We talk about lots of things: red meat, saturated fat, butter, anxiety, cancer, gut issues, and more.

You can download it by right-clicking (control-clicking on the Mac) here. Or, head over to the PaleoValley site to see the show notes.

As for the beef sticks, which we don't talk about in the podcast, there are a few things worth noting. First, the beef is from grass-fed cows and it's wrapped in a collagen casing, so you get high-quality and balanced nutrition from it. Second, it's lacto-fermented. That means it takes four times longer to produce, but it's probably healthier and more digestible as a result. What I really care about, though, is the texture. Since it's preserved through lacto-fermentation, it doesn't have to be preserved by being as dry as a rock. It has a pleasant amount of moisture that makes it taste and feel fresh, which is more than I can say for most other comparable products.

You can check out the beef sticks here. They have a few other products, but I haven't tried them. Autumn tells me they're developing a product with organ meats (liver, heart, brain, kidney) and a collagen-based bar, so I'm excited to try those in the future.

Enjoy!