The Carnivore Bar

About Us, Why We're Doing This, & Other Awesome Things You Should Know About!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Apr 04, 2019 at 02:34:41 PM

Hey everyone! 

We've been getting lots of questions about who we are and why we are creating The Carnivore Bar, so we'd thought we'd tell you a little about our story in a video. Basically, how we met, our health journey, and why we were inspired to do this Kickstarter for The Carnivore Bar. By now you probably know that Phillip is the creator of the bar; Merry Ellen does basically everything else. We didn't mention it in the video but we also want to give a huge shout-out to Mikhaila & Jordan Peterson for sharing their healing stories and helping us find the Carnivore Diet.

While we're at it, we also want to let you know about a couple of other crowdfunding projects with deadlines in the next few days that we think you'll love. 

•  KetoFest is an annual keto food & science festival in Connecticut - we haven't been yet, but we've heard it's an amazing time. They are all about spreading knowledge about nutrition and building community. This year's event is July 19-21. Even if you can't make it, please consider supporting them by getting a shirt - we did. Check it out here.  
•  Food Lies is a documentary film project that's shedding light on the history of modern dietary guidelines, what we should be eating, and how to fix the current health crisis plaguing so much of the world. Check it out here.  

We think it's important to band together as a community of people trying to take their health back into their own hands, and to support each other in that endeavor. These are projects that we have personally supported and believe in, and hope you will too. 

Thanks for supporting The Carnivore Bar, and have a great weekend!! 

- Phillip & Merry Ellen

Low Carb Denver After Action Reveiw
over 5 years ago – Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 06:42:56 PM

We are 23% funded - thank you all so much! 

Seems like one tweet from Mikhaila Peterson is all the momentum we needed to get this off the ground! Thank you Mikhaila, we’re so glad you like it! We basically designed this bar around her version of the Carnivore Diet. Figured if she can eat it it's probably safe for the rest of us. 

So we did a short run of samples for Boulder Carnivore Conference & Low Carb Denver 2019. I thought it was a wonderful set of conferences. We pledged to "inexorable courtesy" together, we learned a lot, had terrific conversations, and got candid feedback on our Carnivore Bar! Thanks to everyone we met and tried our bar!

So here's the AAR:

Sustains:

• People want a grass-fed meat bar
• People like the high fat at the 80/20 split
• The texture is great if you were expecting pemmican
• Nothing like this exists and there is huge demand for it
• Being transparent about challenges at LCD2019 was appreciated.

Improves:

• People want a grain-fed meat bar.
• A little too much salt.
• Some don't want it to be "greasy", they expected it to be like jerky.
• Texture is surprising and not what we were expecting, like a "fat crumble"
• A few of the samples oxidized. As you may know, PUFAs like the Omega 3's in grass-fed and grass-finished beef can oxidize. The bars weren't spoiled but they did taste a little “fishy”, which definitely is something that falls below our standards. We will not deliver our kickstarter product until that risk is fully mitigated.

Plan:

• We will keep the grass-fed version of the bar.
• We may offer a grain-fed version if there's interest. I love the good ecology of grass-finished and I personally feel grass-finished is the future. But people come first. I want this bar to be accessible to the largest number of Carnivores possible.
• We will tone down the salt just a touch. We will also make sure it doesn't clump. We use Redmond Real Salt because it doesn't have any heavy metal anti-caking agents. But without the anti-caking agents, sometimes you'll get a clump of salt all at once. We will have to do an extra step to make sure that doesn't happen again, but we are going to be mechanically dealing with the problem instead of adding chemicals.
• We like the texture, and since jerky already is quite prevalent we will focus on doing what we do best; which is to offer a zero carb, high fat, shelf stable bar.

The most alarming feedback is that of oxidation. Fortunately because we did samples before the kickstarter fulfills, we have plenty of time to fix any issues that arise. A lot of our product development was done with grain finished beef because of availability. We developed a unique way to make high fat meat shelf stable under normal grain fed conditions, and we managed to do the same for (approximately 80%) most of the grass-finished beef. We however underestimated how differently the grass-finished beef would react to the shelf stability process. For the most part it was a huge success, but we did run into a problem with one of the batches - we did 1000 samples and about 20% got a fishy odor, which we were informed by long term carnivores, is typical. So we defied that fate 80% of the time. But that's not good enough. We will always be 100% transparent and being honest that we had this problem is important to me. Like a lot of you, Mikhaila Peterson is not the only Peterson I'm a huge fan of. I will never lie again if I can help it. Because no one gets away with anything.

So this is what we plan to do to fix the issue.

• We will put an oxygen absorber in each wrapper
• We will use a leaner cut of beef when cooking to isolate the protein better and only heat up the more heat stable tallow portion of the bar.
• We also are going to set strict timelines for the grass-fed bars from assembly to packaging to mitigate this potential oxidation from exposure.
• We are going to redo our shelf stability assessment and will have hard numbers for nutrition facts and near-term shelf life by the end of the campaign. (long term shelf life pending)

Thank you all for your faith in this project. We ourselves depend of this technology… as long as I'm planning on eating food, I'll be diligently working on this bar. For me there is no alternative.

Obstacles & Solutions
over 5 years ago – Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 06:15:33 PM

Hey Supporters,

I wanted to update you all that the oxidation problem with our sample batch, has been identified. With our last update we mentioned this problem and the 3 steps were were going to take to fix this problem: Oxygen absorbers, strict timelines, and quality checks. I wanted to continue in the spirit of 100% transparency with what we think went wrong. 

A bottleneck in the cooking process forced us to freeze a portion of our pre-cut meat, which we think oxidized during thawing due to high surface area.

The old process that I knew was working well, involved me doing all the cutting myself. It was extremely time consuming and with meat that is not a good thing. I thought that we could save processing time and therefore exposure if the meat were pre-cut then shipped. So I was half right. It did save time; out of the 200lbs shipped to us, the 100lbs of meat I was able to safely cook fresh, turned out perfectly. However due to bottlenecks in the cooking process, I elected to freeze some of the meat. This was a mistake. The meat was in 5lb cryovac bags and had already been cut to the size I needed. The same meat, the same poundage, not cut, has a way slower enzymatic timetable as well as a much smaller surface area. These two problems  of enzymatic activity and surface area affected approximately 20lbs of product. The product didn't smell differently during production nor in the final form (of which I sampled) but when sealed that oxidation odor built up in the final packaging. A further 80lbs of product that was frozen in now unusable because of these concerns and will be discarded. (which means I'm gonna eat it)

So previously I've done as many as 50 full-size bars and processed all of them myself without any problems. This time I attempted to make 1000 bite-size bars, and every time we scale up production, new problems occur. One of the principal reasons we're on Kickstarter is so that we can get the equipment that will allow us to minimize such risks by processing batches more efficiently. Trying to make a product without stabilizers exposes us to these risks in ways that no other product is likely to face. This is an ancient food but scaling it up safely without additives is a new technological feat.

There are good reasons there isn't shelf stable pemmican for sale. And why I make the claim that this product is different in key ways.

• The first is timetables and shelf life. Preservatives give so much freedom in the processing timeline. There are many options that open up to a manufacturer by having a product that isn't so vulnerable to oxygen, is always homogeneous, and doesn't fall out of solution at temperature. These are only a few of the reasons that all our modern food has additives. These manufactures aren't trying to make you feel sick. These additives solve functional problems that kick you in the teeth when you take them away. Each unpronounceable chemical added to your food does something important. Each one you take away adds hours of headaches to the person trying to figure out how to make that product. Taking away all of them simultaneously is gutsy. We're betting that people want this product badly enough that they'll stand by us during the inevitable struggle. We believe in this product and we hope you will too.
• The second is texture and solidity. Just getting a consistent, heat-stable product at room temperature is a challenge unto itself. Most pemmican is either crumbly or soft like play-dough. The making of pemmican is highly variable, and some of the low carb/Carnivore community will tell you what great lengths they've gone to get their recipe just right. But the commonality of their stories is this: you need a Carnivore friendly travel food, and there isn't any. 
• The third is that it's too expensive, too risky, and the profit margins are thin. Basically only a psychopath or someone who depended on this food to live, would even attempt the creation of such a product. It's totally up to you to judge which one I am. 

So the process is still valid and effective, but the challenges remain substantive. Every change that's made to the process needs to be tested and re-evaluated before we open for distribution.  Ultimately we are really glad we did samples early in the process; that has allowed us to identify problems and make corrections before scaling up. 

Thank you all for supporting this endeavor. 

- Phillip

Carnivore Feedback Response and our People-First Philosophy.
over 5 years ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 11:01:49 AM

It has come to our attention that many long-term Carnivores don't salt their food, as well as prefer the taste and affordability of grain-fed beef. So, in an effort to support as many Carnivores as possible, we are introducing grain-fed and salt-free variations on The Carnivore Bar, expanding our initial offering to four distinct versions of the bar: 

• 100% Grass-fed with Salt (Original)
• 100% Grass-fed without Salt
• Grain-fed with Salt
• Grain-fed without Salt

I personally think using regenerative farming practices to restore the soil and repair the environment is a very important mission. But I think people's needs are more important than the planet's. We received feedback from Low Carb Denver that some carnivores really don't like grass-finished beef. Then there's the issue of cost. If I can overcome some of the barriers of entry to this way of eating, by lowering the cost and making it more palatable, I have to do it. I feel morally compelled to put people first.

Additionally it appears that in order to have broad enough appeal to launch, we needed to offer a salted version for the newbies and a no-salt version for the veterans. I prefer mine with salt personally but don't have a strong opinion either way on the science. 

I hope I can eventually convince people that a grass-fed and grass-finished product is the best defense against the vegan agenda. However, I won't push my beliefs on anyone else. My aim is to support people on whatever low carb or ancestral journey they find themselves. Thank you for helping us get a travel-friendly product into the hands of people who struggle with the logistics of doing these diets on the go.

We will send all backers a survey at the end of the Kickstarter, where you can let us know which version of the bar you'd like, along with your shirt size. The grain-fed bars will eventually be cheaper, but for the purpose of the fundraiser, as well as to support the costs of offering different versions, the grain-fed bars will available at the same tiers as the grass-fed bars. 

Thank you for your feedback. We will always put the community first.

Sincerely,

Phillip

PS. Thank you for watching and sharing our video! It has over 18k views! CJ from New Picture Studios did an amazing job putting it together. He's done a lot of great work for food allies like U.S. Wellness Meats, Soil Health Academy, and Grass-fed Exchange. 

Answers to popular questions.
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 04:05:04 PM

Why is this bar different from Pemmican?

• Better texture, like a crunchy granola bar made of meat.
• Shelf Stable with a higher quality preservation of nutrients.
• Solid and bar form at room temperature (not soft). And therefore not a mess!

Ultimately we are not sad we are getting this question a lot. Pemmican is great and is a terrific 16th century food. We are trying to modernize and bring the same idea up to date with better processing and care. So you can have ancient nutrition with the convenience of modern life.

How much does each bar/box cost?

Each Carnivore Bar comes out to 5 dollars so a Carnivore Box (20 bars) will currently cost 100 dollars. We'd love to bring this price down as much as humanly possible. Doing this Kickstarter is all about bringing the cost down by scaling up the production of this bar. We are our own first customers, and we want to be able to afford this bar. We quickly learned that we would need help going forward with that aim. That's why we launched this project.

What's in each Bar?

A lot of meat gets condensed into each bar. Each bar contains the equivalent of an 6oz Ribeye steak with 80 percent of the calories from fat and 20 percent of the calories from protein. So basically 5 dollars for a steak you can put in your pocket and take with you anywhere. 

Each bar is slightly more protein than fat by volume, giving the bar a delightful crunch that we've engineered mechanically, without having to add anything chemical or unnatural that might upset our digestion.

The weight of each bar is roughly 65 grams. The Macros are 80/20 fat to protein and it will be a high calorie bar approximately 300 calories, so pretty close to a meal replacement.  

If there's any other questions we'd be happy to answer them. Thank you for your support!

-Phillip