Meat+Poultry - January 2018 - 18

COVER STORY

Pederson's No Sugar
Added Bacon features the
Whole30 Approved logo.

"I think it's
important
that we have a
steady stream
of positive
information
about meat to
counteract the
steady stream
of negative
information
that seems
to always be
publicized to
consumers."

18

MEAT+ POULTRY | 01.18 | www.meatpoultry.com

MEATING THE NEED
Rooney created his company, Tucson, Arizonabased DNX Foods, and his products, DNX meat
bars, to meet the needs of meat eaters. Or more
specifically, those on meat centric diets that
are looking for healthful ways to get more meat
protein in their snacks.
"Our goal was to develop a meat bar that
delivered protein as nature intended it," Rooney
says. "We saw that there were good tasting
snack bars on the market that weren't good
for you and good-for-you bars that didn't taste
good. We wanted to give our customers both."
DNX meat bars contain grass-fed bison
or beef and organic vegetables in flavor
combinations that aren't typical for snack bars
- Jamaican-style, Mexican-style, sweet potato
pecan, dark cacao cherry coconut and fennel
sweet potato. DNX will soon be adding chicken
and pork varieties to their line of meat bars.
Aside from the flavors, the difference in
DNX bars versus other meat-centric snacks like
beef jerky is that those types of meat snacks
only contain protein - DNX bars deliver protein,

Pederson's Natural Farms

- JANET RILEY

In short: "Meat provides high quality,
nutrient-dense protein and when consumed
generally improves diet quality," Phillips says.
Animal proteins deliver nutrients such as
zinc, magnesium and B12, that can't be found
in the same amounts in plant-based proteins.
In fact, B12 can only be found in animal
products like fish, meat, poultry, eggs and
milk. According to the CDC, B12 is the most
deficient nutrient in the American diet.
"Animal protein is a more complete protein,
where vegetable proteins are not," Rodgers
says. "Animal protein is also easier to digest -
soy (which is a good source of protein) is a lot
harder for the system to digest."
As a nutritionist and dietician, Rodgers
feels like she's in the minority when it comes
to being pro-meat. "What I was taught in my
nutritionist education was to be very pro
vegetable and anti-meat. That's the climate
we're dealing with right now," she explains.
"It's very fashionable to be vegetarian and
vegan right now.
"Diets like Whole30 and Paleo do put more
emphasis on eating meat, but there's still a lot
of education needed on the benefits of eating
meat - both nutritionally, environmentally and
sustainably," she says. "I think the meat industry
needs to focus on the pure nutrition value of
meat and the benefits of protein. And how meat
is a calorically efficient way to get protein."
As senior vice president of public affairs
with the North American Meat Institute

(NAMI), Janet Riley spends most of her time
promoting the meat industry and meat itself,
but at times it feels like an uphill battle. There's
a lot of false information out there about food,
she explains, and a lot of it is about meat.
NAMI hosts a website called Meat
Mythcrushers, specifically designed to "provide
consumers and media with the other side of
the story." Under the Nutrition and Health
Myths section there are videos regarding
whether spinach and other vegetables are
as good of a source of iron as meat, whether
grass-fed beef is more nutritious than corn-fed
beef and if eliminating meat from your diet will
make it healthier.
"If consumers see the comparison between
beef and other protein sources like tofu,
beans or nuts, they'll be surprised to see how
much complete protein they can get for very
few calories and very few grams of fat," Riley
explains. "Beef is a very nutritionally dense
food. It's important that we communicate that
to consumers.
"I think it's important that we have a steady
stream of positive information about meat
to counteract the steady stream of negative
information that seems to always be publicized
to consumers," Riley adds.
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Meat+Poultry - January 2018

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