The Beef Jerky Conundrum

            Beef Jerky has to be the most disgusting looking food ever. I look at the gross looking little pieces of dried out beef and I think, what is in this? It can't all be beef... It can't. But then I taste it and stop caring because its amazing.  I say this because a friend of mine gave me the last few pieces out of her bag and as I was sitting there, with my Pepsi and bag of jerky, a question began to gnaw at my mind. What was that little white packet in the bottom of the bag? It clearly says do not eat... I got that much, I'm not retarded, but I searched all over that little packet and could not find it's purpose anywhere on its surface. So, of course, and out of boredom more than anything else, I went on a cyber-adventure! I automatically assumed that it was too keep the product fresh, but there had to be more to it than that. It was toxic, so I couldn't ingest it... what was it made of? My second thought after "What was it?" was, is it safe to eat beef jerky? Could it give me cancer or poison my bloodstream? If it is toxic then why is it in the food? This was certainly a conundrum worth looking into. So, like any true member of the 21st century, I turned to Google. I entered a few keywords into the search engine and pressed "Search". I was rewarded with 5 sites trying to sell me beef jerky, 3 sites, including a blog, telling me how to make beef jerky, and finally I found a link titled, "Silica Gel Packets: How Dangerous are these Inserts?".
"Silica Gel packets, eh?" hmmmmm...... So I I clicked on the link. I discovered that the gel packets are found in everything, including dry foods, shoe boxes, cell phones, camera cases, cat litter, medicine bottles, etc. I'm seriously thinking of taking beef jerky out  of my diet at this point of my cyber-adventure.I felt this way until the article stated that the white stuff was okay. If, for some reason, you decided to eat it anyway (the chick who sued McDonald's and the guy that is stupid enough to eat it anyway could get together) it would only cause you to be extremely thirsty and would most likely not cause you any severe medical harm. However, my theory is a little bit more out there. Did any of you watch that episode of Dr. Who back in the Tennant days called "The Waters of Mars"? For those of you who haven't let me clarify. In this episode, Tennant goes to mars in the future. The people on the planet are being infected by a water creature that inhabits its victims and makes them crazy for water. It was gross in a cool way! They shoot water at the uninfected, thus infecting them. They become dried out and... hmmm... I'm having trouble explaining it. Here's a picture. I realized that these symptoms are just like those of the monsters on this show.The people on Mars who got infected were explorers. They were astronauts in space. Of course they were eating

Gross, Huh?

dried foods. Maybe it wasn't an alien that caused these people to turn into monsters... Maybe it was the Gel packets in their food... (Insert gasp here).
Really though... It makes perfect sense. These monsters were incredibly thirsty. The article I found clearly states that the main symptom of ingesting the gel is extreme thirst, also the gel is used to keep the product dry and fresh. Do you see this guys face? Defiantly dried out...
I think that I am onto something here! Can you imagine? I bet the creators of Jack Links feels stupid now...
Its almost enough to make me stop eating beef jerky. But lets face it. I'm a consumer. Here's an example, I absolutely hated the first Halo game. I thought that it was boring and, I'm sorry for all you fans, dumb. But I continued to buy them, assuming that the next one would be better. I did this for years and when ODST and Reach came out I bought those too. Why, you may ask? In a word, tradition. I had all the others. Why not buy these too (You should know that I ended up loving Reach)? So, when I am told that Coke will dissolve my stomach and give my ulcers, I continue to drink it, when I am told that the movie version of Hunger Games sucks I buy the six dollar ticket and watch it anyway, and when I realize that beef jerky will cause me to become a water obsessed, ugly monster... I eat it anyway. I mean really, it might actually be cool to be a monster. Who knows what monsters think about? Maybe they like it...
Nah, who am I kidding, unless your the rich evil villain like Lex Luther, you probably don't enjoy being a monster. This really is a vicious circle isn't it? Is there no way for me to win besides eating soggy jerky?! Is there no end to the horror!
So there you go folks... Eat jerky at your own discretion!
                                                             -KC-