Have a Picnic. Win a Cow. The 2011 Grokfeast Challenge.

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Updated on November 4, 2013

It’s cow time. US Wellness has long been a favorite meat spot for MDA readers. A couple years ago they donated pemmican and the popular 5 gallon bucket of fat. Last year they went whole hog. And by hog, I mean cow. And they’re doing it again this year. US Wellness has generously offered up a cow to the winners of today’s contest, the Grokfeast Challenge.

For those of you with raised eyebrow, they won’t actually be delivering a mooing, cud chewing, udder dangling live cow to your doorstep. But you will receive the delicious meat that once was that cow. And I’m not just talking about a bucket of chuck. The winners will receive sirloin, brisket, short ribs, back ribs, rib-eye steaks, T-bone steaks, NY strip steaks, Delmonico steaks, filets, bottom round roasts, center cut roasts, chuck, tongue, liver, heart, kidney, beef tallow, marrow bones, beef stock, and an oxtail. Hundreds of pounds of bovine, all grass fed, grass finished, totaling somewhere in the region of $1600 in retail value. Check out this Grass Fed Goodness video where you can watch your prize/meal grazing around in sweet Missouri pastures. And if you haven’t already hit up the US Wellness blog and newsletter, do it now to be the first to learn of sales, discounts and promotional offers. Speaking of promotional offers, use promo code: uswmeats at U.S. Wellness to get a 15% discount on any order under 40 lbs (excludes sale items, volume discounts and bulk boxes). The code is active until October 31.

But winning won’t be easy. It’ll take work. And friends…

To Win the Cow, Host a Grokfeast

What’s a Grokfeast? It’s a picnic! A Primal Picnic. It involves three things:

People: At least eight.
A Feast: Food for those people. Primal food.
A Primal Activity: Fun for those people. Primal fun.

What exactly constitutes “Primal fun?” Any group form of Primal Play could work, like Ultimate Frisbee, a group hike, or Grok Tag. But less traditional options are welcomed as well. Maybe your group wants to shop a farmers’ market before the feast, or build the picnic table you eat the feast on, or host the feast on top of Half Dome. The idea is to capture the Primal spirit. Because going Primal doesn’t have to be a solo operation. Health isn’t a man alone on a treadmill; it’s a group of people enjoying each other’s company, eating healthy food, and maybe breaking a little sweat.

Check out last year’s winning Grokfeast, and all the rest for ideas:

How to Enter the Contest…

Other than having a great time, you’ll need to email me a few of your Grokfeast highlights. For a valid entry, the following are required…

A list of participants. There’s no upper limit, but the minimum is eight.
A list of dishes made for the feast and one recipe of one of those dishes (preferably the tastiest).
Photos of the Grokfeast, including at least one group shot, one shot of the feast, one shot of the recipe dish, and one shot of your Primal activity. Of course, you aren’t limited to four photos. The more pics you send us, the better!
A summary of the day. Tell us how it all went down, did something taste great? Taste awful? What was your Primal activity? Was it enjoyable? A complete failure? Did hilarity ensue? Must be at least two paragraphs. Can easily be more. But use brevity to your advantage. Writing a 15,000 word summary won’t give you a better chance at winning than someone who writes a single, well written, entertaining page.
OPTIONAL: Video of the Grokfeast. It’s not required, but certainly couldn’t hurt.

Finally, be creative! Other than keeping it Primal, there are no limitations on how to have your picnic. Did you convince your entire group to go barefoot? Did you make up your own Primal hunting/gathering game? Is your main dish a Grok-shaped meat cake? Did you have one final water balloon fight before the cold set in? Did you realize the cold had already set in and shivered miserably while building a campfire (to cook your meat on)? Did someone trap, skin, and cure a wild boar hide to use as a picnic blanket? Okay, that might be a little extreme.

But there really aren’t too many restrictions on how to do this. Whether during the day or night, by the ocean or on the roof of a parking garage, at a park, or even in Milwaukee, the possibilities are endless. And it’s not a numbers game. With coworkers, gym buddies, your college dorm cluster, eight people or eighty, the winner isn’t the group with the most people, but the group that throws the coolest Grokfeast. If your friends are all busy, remember there’s a forum filled with other Primal folks who might be in your area.

Once you’ve had your fun and gathered up the evidence, email it to me.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Include “Grokfeast Submission” in the subject line of your email. I receive hundreds of emails a day. If the subject line isn’t correct, there’s a chance I may miss your submission entirely. You can attach pictures or Word docs to the email. If you made a video, please include a link to the YouTube or Vimeo page.

Deadline for Submission:

October 3, midnight, Pacific Standard Time. That’s right, less than three weeks away. I said it wasn’t easy, so hustle!

How a Winner is Chosen:

While I’m not sure how many entries I’ll end up receiving, I’m going to try to publish as many as I can, if not all of them. Entries will be posted during the Reader-Created Content Week, the week of Oct. 3. Semi-finalists will be chosen by me and the Worker Bees later that week. Readers will then have a chance to vote on their favorite. The winner will be announced by the end of the Challenge, Oct. 11.

Fine Print:

The beef will be shipped to one address. It is up to the participants to divide the beef up however they choose (and for those of you thinking about hoarding the beef and not telling your other participants, keep in mind your Grokfeast will be published live on a blog that gets millions of page views a month. They might find out.).
Cow prize not available to residents outside the U.S.. In the event of a non-US team winning, a prize of equal value will be sent as substitute.
Cow prize is not a living, breathing cow. It is a large quantity (over 200 lbs) of various meats that represent most of the edible parts of a cow.
MDA reserves the right to publish any or all material submitted. MDA also reserves the right to make edits to any videos submitted.
Only one entry per group. Only one person needs to submit the entry. That person will be used as the sole contact for establishing shipping/delivery details of the winning prize.
I will be encouraging the winning team to hold a second meet-up for the cow delivery. I want to see all that meat being doled out and enjoyed!
Depending on the number of entries, I reserve the right to adjust how and when the entries will be published and/or voted on. All rules subject to change.

To track all the contests visit the 2011 Primal Blueprint 30-Day Challenge Contest Page for daily updates.

TAGS: health challenges

About the Author

Mark Sisson is the founder of Mark’s Daily Apple, godfather to the Primal food and lifestyle movement, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Keto Reset Diet. His latest book is Keto for Life, where he discusses how he combines the keto diet with a Primal lifestyle for optimal health and longevity. Mark is the author of numerous other books as well, including The Primal Blueprint, which was credited with turbocharging the growth of the primal/paleo movement back in 2009. After spending three decades researching and educating folks on why food is the key component to achieving and maintaining optimal wellness, Mark launched Primal Kitchen, a real-food company that creates Primal/paleo, keto, and Whole30-friendly kitchen staples.