Joshua Kace says he was never a potato chip guy. "Dried meat was always my snack." He remembers road-tripping to national parks out west at a young age when his parents pulled over at a gas station—it was the first time beef jerky touched his lips. "I always wanted more jerky. There never was enough jerky," he says. Kace, naturally, went on to launch his own small-batch artisan jerky company with two friends called SlantShack Jerky, the latest subject for Liza de Guia's Food Curated video series. More

In case you were wondering what you're ingesting when bite into a Slim Jim, Wired explains the meat stick's ingredients. It's a glorious combination of beef, mechanically separated chicken, corn and wheat proteins, one-sixth of your daily sodium needs, and so much more. Mmm!... More

File this under "Because We Rarely Have Reason to Talk About Slim Jims": If you're wondering where your beloved beef jerky sticks are, there's a shortage due to a deadly explosion last month caused by a gas leak that destroyed the only Slim Jim plant in the country in Garner, North Carolina, and killed three employees. The company doesn't expect to meet full Slim Jim demand until fall. [via Best Week Ever] Update (7/13/09): Donations to the ConAgra Foods Garner Plant Fund are being accepted through United Way. BlueRidgeNow.com has a feature about the victims and their families. The factory will resume operations on July 27. ConAgra says there is no Slim Jim shortage.... More

Meat Cards: We start with 100% beef jerky, and SEAR your contact information into it with a 150 WATT CO2 LASER.Screw die-cutting. Forget about foil, popups, or UV spot lamination. THESE business cards have two ingredients: MEAT AND LASERS. As TK Baltimore points out, "OK, but if you eat it, doesn't that defeat the purpose?" [via Boing Boing]... More

According to the Ad Freak blog, the following videos (after the jump) are the first national ad campaign for Oberto beef jerky. They're mildly amusing and somewhat bizarre, and maybe they'll go some way toward elevating jerky beyond a road-trip snack, for which it is ideally suited. Still, I prefer the weird mom-and-pop local brands that you find at truck stops and gas stations. No clever marketing campaign can top the regional flavors of jerky that you find as you drive cross-country. And as far as jerky commercials go, there's no topping the old Randy "Macho Man" Savage spots for Slim Jim. Those were truly surreal and memorable.... More