Wild Zora is a family-owned business out of Loveland, Colorado. They make healthy meat and veggie bars using only quality ingredients. The company produces, packages and ships everything from its Colorado facility, which enables Wild Zora to maintain such a high-quality standard.
A few years ago, our kids’ swim teacher introduced me to Wild Zora when she handed me a couple of their meat bars. Until then, the snacks we had at home consisted mostly of nuts, fruits, or some Paleo-friendly granola bars.
Meat or veggie bars were not on our radar. At that time, I didn’t even know you could get the combination of meat and veggies in a snack bar.
But even before I had tried Wild Zora’s meat snacks, we decided to make some adjustments to our snacking behavior, especially while traveling. It wasn’t that we ate unhealthy snacks, but I wanted to introduce more protein and fat while reducing carbs.
Wild Zora Review – Healthy Meat & Veggie Bars
Most meat snack manufacturers outsource everything from their cooking to packaging to shipping. So you’ve got no way of knowing where, or under what conditions, the products are produced in.
Experts call that “co-packing” and it is pretty standard in the industry. Wild Zora doesn’t do that. Additionally, the Colorado company uses a low-heat slow-dehydration method to process their meat snacks.
That reduces the risk of the formation of so-called carcinogens, a fancy name for compounds that can cause cancer.
Most competitors use high-heat grilling, frying, broiling, or baking to prepare their products. That not only destroys many nutrients but it can also lead to the formation of these dangerous chemicals.
As with everything I consider eating, I ran Wild Zora through our “healthy food checklist” before admitting their meat and veggie bars to our pantry. So let’s have a look at their ingredients.
Wild Zora ingredients
Wild Zora offers different proteins, veggies, and fruits in their bars but they all have a few attributes in common. All meat snacks recipes are free of:
- Added sugar,
- Artificial ingredients,
- Gluten,
- Grains (Gluten),
- Dairy (Milk),
- Soy,
- Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a flavor enhancer you can find in many processed foods,
- Hormones,
- Antibiotics, and
- Chemical additives.
Wild Zora doesn’t claim that their snacks are sugar-free because some of their ingredients, such as tomatoes, dates, or apricots naturally contain sugar. Despite some of that natural sugar, all of their bars have a low glycemic index (GI).
That means, your body converts the sugar in the bars slowly, thus preventing an insulin spike. That makes Wild Zora bars ideal for anyone with diabetes or other issues related to blood sugar. Of course, all of their veggies are 100% organic.
Update: As discussed in the video below, I’ve transitioned to an animal-based diet and no longer eat most vegetables!
Meat Quality
The beef in Wild Zora’s paleo snack bars is “100% grass-fed, completely natural and humanely raised on pasture with no added growth hormones or antibiotics.” That’s the most expensive way of raising cattle, but it results in the highest quality meat.
Beyond beef, all of the animals that Wild Zora gets its meat from are raised free-range and on-pasture, including turkey, lamb, and pork. Most importantly, Wild Zora makes sure that farmers treat all of their animals humanely and with respect. In my opinion, that is as important as any label or certification.
Wild Zora & Paleo
If you have read my blog in the past, you may know that our family is on a Paleo diet. So I am excited that Wild Zora has a dedicated line of snacks to cater to Paleo enthusiasts.
A few months ago, I realized that they also offer a snack bar that doesn’t contain onion or garlic. I am sensitive to these two ingredients, so I much appreciate that I can get a Paleo-compatible meat snack without them.
However, Wild Zora doesn’t stop at Paleo. Additionally, they cater to a variety of different dietary lifestyles, including:
- Whole30
- Gluten free
- Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)
- Diabetics
- Athletes
Wild Zora Meat & Veggie Bars
As of this writing, Wild Zora offers seven different flavors of meat and veggie bars, including:
- Apple Pork With Kale, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme
- BBQ Beef with Kale, Tomato & Red Bell Pepper
- Chili Beef with Kale, Apricot & Cayenne Pepper
- Curry Masala Turkey with Spinach, Dates & Cardamom
- Mediterranean Lamb with Spinach, Rosemary & Turmeric
- Parmesan Beef with Kale, Tomato & Basil
- Taco Pork with Cilantro, Lime & Jalapeño
My personal favorite is the Apple Pork bar because it doesn’t have any garlic or onions, which tend to make me bloated. But don’t get me wrong; they all taste delicious. If you like it a little spicy, I can also recommend the Chili Beef bar!
To give you an idea how filling each pack is, below is the nutritional information of the Apple Pork bars:
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Calories | 130 |
| Total Fat | 8g |
| Total Carbs (Sugar) | 9g (7g) |
| Protein | 7g |
As you can see, each bar offers a balanced mix of macronutrients, including a reasonable amount of sugar from fruits. In the case of the Apple Pork bar, the sugar is from dried apricots and dates.
While traveling or when I’m in a pinch, I eat 3-4 Wild Zora meat bars to replace a light meal. That gives me 21 – 28 grams of protein and plenty of fat.
Pro tip: To add more calories when I need them, I often carry portion-sized pouches of avocado oil mayo from Chosen Foods that I dip the meat in. That adds some extra fat to keep me satiated!
What Else Does Wild Zora Do?
Despite having gotten its fame from meat bars, Wild Zora has expanded its portfolio over the last few years through acquisition and new product ideas.
Paleo Meals To Go
Most notably, Wild Zora has acquired Paleo Meals To Go, another family-owned business that focused on freeze-dried Paleo meals for backpackers and hikers.
Since the acquisition, Wild Zora has used its experience in the food industry to fine-tune the formula and improve the quality of its ingredients.
I had another chance to test one of their meals the other day, and the taste of those freeze-dried dishes blew me away. It’s hard to believe that food with such a long shelf-life can be so delicious.
If you’re an outdoor enthusiast and enjoy hiking or backpacking, I highly recommend giving Wild Zora’s Paleo Meals To Go a try.
Meals cost between $10 – $13 and they offer between 350 – 500 calories.
Try Wild Zora Meat & Veggies Bars
Real Soups
My wife and I love soups, particularly in winter. And I remember when I was a kid, I would often have an instant soup called “Heisse Tasse,” which is popular in Austria and Germany.
Of course, that soup was neither compatible with Paleo nor any other form of healthy eating. However, it was convenient, because all you had to do is add hot water.
Wild Zora has picked up on that idea by creating a healthy instant soup, featuring grass-fed beef and free-range chicken.
The company currently offers three flavors including lemon chicken, Tuscan chicken, and Picante beef. The former doesn’t have any nightshades and is, thus, AIP friendly.
I tried the chicken lemon soup, and it was as good as I had expected! If you want to try out Wild Zora’s real soups, you can get a 12-pack for less than $25 on wildzora.com.
Instant Teas
I’m a coffee guy, and I only drink tea when I’m sick. Coincidentally, while writing this review and suffering from a cold and I wish I had asked Wild Zora to send me some of their tea.
Much like instant coffee, most instant tea on the market doesn’t taste great. However, Wild Zora has figured out a way to dehydrate organic black and green teas without sacrificing flavor.
In other words, the instant beverages Wild Zora offers taste like freshly brewed tea. I’ll need to take their word for it because I haven’t had a chance to try them yet.
You can choose between Organic Mango Green Tea or Organic English Breakfast Tea. Either flavor is available as a 10-Pack for $9.99.
Real Fruit Snacks
Wild Zora recently launched a line of air-dried fruit snacks that are paleo, AIP, gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free and vegan.
What makes the dried fruit snacks from Wild Zora different to most other fruits snacks are the following important factors:
- The fruits come with their peels to retain the important fiber that slows down the conversion of fruit sugar into glucose and thus reduces the typical insulin spike.
- No additives to make the fruit look prettier.
- No added sugar or fruit juice (sugar)
- No preservatives or dyes
Frequently Asked Questions
Besides WildZora.com, you can also find them on Amazon and Walmart.com. I used to see them at my local Whole Foods store, but as of February 2019, Whole Foods no longer offers Wild Zora products. Instead, you can find them in your local Walmart store.
For more locations, check out the company’s store locator.
The classic beef jerky and similar meat snacks you can find in most grocery stores are junk food. That means those products are often loaded with sugar and artificial ingredients, such as sweeteners, colors, and preservatives.
More importantly, the meat contained in those snacks is highly processed which increases the risk of cancer.
All Wild Zora meat snacks are gluten-free.
Unfortunately, not. Wild Zora makes meat and veggie bars only.
Yes, the Apple Pork bar, my favorite, doesn’t have any onion or garlic.
The meat bars last approximately nine months and the freeze-dried meals last up to two years from the date of manufacturing.
Final Words – Wild Zora Review
Wild Zora is one of my favorite Paleo brands, and I’m a die-hard fan of their meat and veggie bars.
Every time I go on a trip, I throw a bunch of their Apple Pork treats into my backpack, so I have a healthy protein snack while I’m on the go.
Most snacks out there, even the healthy ones, are high in carbohydrates. I try to stick with a high protein/fat and low-carb diet, which made snacking challenging until I stumbled across Wild Zora.
If you have never tried their meat and veggie treats before, go ahead and give them a try. I promise you won’t regret it! When you do, make sure to use discount code MK15 to get 15% off your order!
If you are familiar with Wild Zora products, let me know how you like them by leaving a comment below!
Michael Kummer is a healthy living enthusiast and CrossFit athlete whose goal is to help people achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society.
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