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If you asked me a year ago what “tallow” was, I probably would have given you an answer worthy of Balderdash (I ROCK out that game!). Like: “A build up of ear wax in the inner ear canal that results in partial hearing loss in the elderly.” Oh yeah. Two points for that one for sure.
If you asked me what “lard” was, I bet I would have cringed first! I still cringe a little when I think about it in pie crusts…yet I might have to buy some good stuff this winter and try my hand at it!
The last vocabulary word you need to learn for your pop quiz on the Monday Mission, dear students, is “render”. To render simply means to extract by melting. You render fat by making it liquid, separating it from anything else, then allowing it to solidify. Rendered fat has an advantage over raw meat; it has a shelf life. Our ancestors used to leave a cup of fat on the counter and use it until it was gone. In fact, my grandmother used to. This isn’t new information.
Tallow is fat rendered from beef, and lard is from pork. They are both solid at room temperature and have a very high smoke point, so they’re great for frying. They’re also quite healthy.
Health Benefits of Lard and Tallow
Ever heard someone say, “So-and-so ate bacon and eggs every morning and lived in good health until s/he was 90+….” That might be because the pork fat in bacon is not an unhealthy fat. Not only is saturated fat, like animal fats, actually helpful to your body’s systems, but lard is flying under the radar with 51% monounsaturated fat. You’ve seen those words before: mono- fats are the primary fat in olive oil, peanut butter, and avocados, some of the healthiest billed fatty foods in the land. So there. You can have your bacon and eat it too! (There is a catch. I’m so sorry. Keep reading.)
(Before you go on, be sure to read the Health Benefits of Saturated Fat post if you missed it. It’s the keystone to accepting animal fats as less than garbage. Start with the Fat Full Fall series if you’ve missed a lot!)
Lard
- High in monounsaturated fat
- High in Vitamin D (also in the news a lot lately – we need it for immunities!)
- Strong bones (from Vitamin D)
- Good for skin – moisturizes from the inside (or on the outside, actually)
Tallow
- Almost 50% monounsaturated fat
- May have positive impact on reducing cancer growth
- Grassfed beef fat has a high concentration of “conjugated linoleic acid,” or CLA, which is good for cholesterol levels. (See here for more.)
We are What our Food Eats: How to Find “Good Meat”
Finding tallow in your supermarket is probably as difficult as chasing down the cow and starting from scratch, and lard only slightly easier. Once you’ve found some, it’s time to ask questions. The quality of the fat is determined by the quality of what the animal ate. Unfortunately, most supermarket meat is factory-grown, where the animals don’t get exercise and have diets meant to make them fatter quicker. They are treated with antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease in crowded areas and hormones to speed up the process even more. (Not always, but you won’t know unless you ask.) Toxins like these plus any chemicals on the animals’ feed will concentrate in the fat, so more than any other time, we must know about the life of our food when we’re buying animal fats.
Most supermarket lard is also hydrogenated to ensure shelf life and treated with preservatives like BHT and BHA, which have their own health issues. I found lard at a local Sav-a-Lot that caters to the Hispanic community, and I called the company before I purchased it. I was assured that the lard was rendered pork fat, nothing added, not hydrogenated. The package, of course, states that BHA and BHT are added, so with that as a starting point for accuracy, I’m questioning the depth of knowledge of the customer service rep I spoke with! I’m about halfway through the tub…and I’m thinking maybe I should cut my losses and pitch it anyway.
This is “the catch” I spoke of: you only want to eat lard or tallow from good sources. Real lard needs refrigeration. You will probably have to go to a local butcher (or even a farm) to find a good source. (I can get it at Van Ball’s on Plainfield here in GR.)
Here are (some) questions you should ask:
- What did the pigs eat? (Organic feed? Corn and soy? On pasture?)
- Were they able to roam freely to a certain extent?
- How is the lard processed? (Wet or dry? Hydrogenation? Preservatives?)
- Were the pigs treated with antibiotics or hormones?
- Best answers = pastured pigs, no soy, traditionally rendered lard with no additives or meds
Tallow has a similar list. The cows should be grass-fed, entirely if possible, with no meds. I don’t have a source that I’ve tried for tallow, but I trust Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s advice. Her source is U.S. Wellness Meats. Tallow does not need to be refrigerated at all if it’s used often enough and in an airtight container.
You Can Make Lard and Tallow Yourself!
The easy way:
The fat on the top of your homemade beef stock is tallow, as is, I believe, any liquid beef fat you come across. Scoop it off and save it for frying.
Bacon grease is a form of lard. If you have some local, pastured bacon, save that grease. It makes some recipes simply divine. I heard through the grapevine of a chef who said, “Put bacon grease in anything and all the customers love it!”
The not-so-hard but longer way:
Cheeseslave has an excellent post on how to render lard and tallow. I’ll refer you to her! The Wikipedia article on the subject is actually quite good and lists a lot of the traditional ways lard can be used in cooking and baking.
How Did Lard and Tallow Get so Misrepresented?
Advertising. Marketing. Media. Even back at the turn of the century, companies realized that if they could process and market something, they’d make more money than if they just helped farmers sell their whole food products. The shortening industry mounted an effective attack on lard that has turned the tongues of Americans for 100 years.
Tallow didn’t fall from grace quite so hard. In fact, if you’re at least 25 years old, chances are you have eaten it in a very specific, very American establishment. More on that on Friday!
(Have you seen my humble confession this week, and the fat I ate Sunday night while typing it up?)
A fun lard article at Food & Wine: Lard, The New Health Food?
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Good morning, Katie! :>) Looking forward to browsing the link you sent me (still looking forward to browsing the Salatin link, too!) though I seem to have a sick little one today that will likely hamper a lot of things. And that’s OK.
Just wanted to pass along this link on rendering beef fat at Mom’s Frugal.
And my Grandma Johnson makes the BEST pie crusts with lard.
Lenetta @ Nettacow´s last blog ..Link Roundup – Harvest Edition
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Lenetta @ Nettacow Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
PS – linked. Thanks!!
Lenetta @ Nettacow´s last blog ..Link Roundup, Squeeze Your Toddler Edition
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thanks – I’d been meaning to ask someone about “quality” of grocery store lard……….. I’m guessing then the lard sitting on the shelf next to the Crisco, isn’t much better then the Crisco itself?
But – what would be your thought – “bad” lard better then Crisco or just use butter if you cannot get “good” lard?
Jen´s last blog ..Egg Nog
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Katie Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 1:52 am
My thought, although I think I’ve been using “bad lard” and thinking it was “good” is this:
Hydrogenated oils are the worst fats. Go with butter!
Great clarification, Jen, thank you!
Katie
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Balderdash! Ha ha ha! I was so bad at this game
Does your Friday post have anything to do with the second video clip on this blog post from Kelly the Kitchen Kop?
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/09/julia-child-cute-clips-quotes.html
CELLULITE ANALYST´s last blog ..Why Is Cellulite a Beauty Issue?
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This explanation is really helpful. The lard I found at the Shop Rite that I mentioned before was not refrigerated so I’m glad that I didn’t buy it. We have a butcher near by that I’ll try. If he doesn’t have it, I’ll try a farmers market that has at least one Amish farmer; he’ll probably have it.
Barb@My Daily Round´s last blog ..Christmas Stockings
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this post brings back fond memories of rendering lard with my maternal grandma as a little girl. we fed the cracklings to the chickens. if you’re a laura ingalls wilder fan, you may recall they rendered lard once & ma allowed mary & laura to each have one cracklin’ because they were so rich.
it may be easiest to find fat in your butcher’s case this time of year in michigan, since deer hunters usually mix pork fat in their venison sausage & burger in order to have enough fat content to hold patties together. also, beef fat is aka suet (like what birds eat…but don’t eat the bird stuff!). it may be easier to find now because of the season. my mom was usually able to find it around christmas time to make a vintage family recipe, plum pudding.
both pork & beef fat mostly comes off the animal’s back & is called “back fat”. back fat is the last fat & last component (muscle first) that is accumulated in the growing (finishing) process. genetic advancement keeps today’s animals leaner. an animal that has a TON of back fat is probably OLD & thus meat quality is probably pretty poor.
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: Boobie trapped the trash can with a foil pan. Hopefully it scares cd when it falls.
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Katie Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Tonya,
Love it, love it. You are such a wealth of information!
Katie
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tonya Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
i should share the plum pudding recipe with you. it’s a holiday kitchen adventure!
something i forgot to add, since i saw antibiotic free mentioned. milk & meat in the food supply DO NOT have antibiotics in them, however, unless noted, they MAY be from animals treated with antibiotics.
antibiotics have a “withdrawl” time. once the antibiotic is no longer being administered, the prescribed withdrawl time is observed & the animal’s products (milk or meat) are antibiotic free.
farms are moving to “all in, all out” operations, so that all the animals arrive together & are sent to market together & no antibiotics are used. employees have to shower to enter & wear clothes from the farm (unmentionables included) in order to be as biosecure as possible. the MSU swine farm is run this way. as a visitor, if you don’t “shower-in” you can only observe from a small room with a large window.
& finally, a question. I’ve heard you talk about organ meats. What’s your take on liver…since it’s a giant filter, aren’t you leery?
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: Renton peeps #ff for @terriblebeauty_
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Katie Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Tonya,
Is the “withdrawal” time the reason some beef is marketed as “no antibiotics in the 120-day finishing period”?
re: organ meats. I’ve only used liver once, but I have another in my freezer. I read that it’s so healthy…I would only use organ meats from pastured, organic animals at this point, never supermarket chickens or beef. BUT – I don’t know much about them overall! You?
Katie
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tonya Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
something being marketed as no antibiotics during finishing means no antibiotics during finishing.
this makes me wonder, how does your dairy farm treat mastitis?
i have steered clear from organ meats. not my bag. my family (grandparents, parents) used them as i was growing up. i’ve seen them & dealt with them. given the “filter” properties of the liver though, it’s not one i would go for. now, that is me being anecdotal.
i’ll look for some evidence of residue in liver meet or fats.
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: Whoa. Really slept in today. Oops.
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Katie Reply:
November 16th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Tonya,
Looking fwd to the info on liver/filtering and toxins left behind (never thought I’d say THAT and mean it!).
If I remember our tour correctly, our dairy farm pulls the animal’s milk if they have mastitis…but I think they have a really low incidence of mastitis, period, b/c the animals are so healthy (only one vet visit in 4 or 5 years).
Thanks for all the links – my head is spinning trying to figure out what I’m reading!
Katie
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tonya Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:41 am
are your farm’s cattle pastured 24/7/365? if they are always on grass, i can see a lower mastitis incidence, because it’s “cleaner”. manure, mud & dirt are big culprits where mastitis is concerned. this also makes me wonder if the farm pre & post dips their cattle’s teats & if they do, with what…if they do dip with something, it’d probably be a chemical of some sort. that all being said, i can’t see a zero incidence of mastitis. it’s gotta be treated somehow when it happens.
mastitis usually doesn’t require a vet visit, unless it’s REALLY nasty (staph).
i’ve done some looking for pesticide residue info, but it’s been a busy work week for me. still searching.
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Katie Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
The cattle are on grass or hay the entire year, but I don’t know how much time they spend outside in the winter. I do believe they dip the teats, in a “sanitizing solution”. Bleach water, I think Not ideal, but you can’t avoid EVERYthing! Like I said, I think they just pull that animal’s milk when the cow has mastitis.
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just noticed this too…”Unfortunately, most supermarket meat is factory-grown, where the animals don’t get exercise and have diets meant to make them fatter quicker.”
NOT TRUE. farms don’t want their animals to be fat. fat doesn’t pay. muscle does. fat & muscle are indirectly proportional. muscle quantity & quality are what farm’s are selling.
as an animal gets fatter it has less muscle. thus, too much fat = bad. as i mentioned in my first post, fat is the last component laid down in the finishing process. “fattening” truly is the finishing part of finishing. actually, fat is also called finish when describing livestock.
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: Renton peeps #ff for @terriblebeauty_
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Katie Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Isn’t the “grade A” meat called so because of its marbling though? I talked to a local meat market and they said they don’t stock grassfed animals because the marbling isn’t there. ?? I was under the impression that, ironically as much as we value “low-fat” foods as a society, we value higher-fat meat for the flavor.
M. Pollan says in In Defense of Food “animals grow faster on a high energy diet of grain.” Can I say accurately then that factory-farmed animals (meaning anything other than green grass, really) eat diets designed to make them grow faster to be ready for slaughter more quickly?
I don’t think I’d use tallow from supermarket beef myself. Is it true that toxins/chemicals will concentrate in the animal fat (like pesticides from their feed)?
Thank you,
Katie
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tonya Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
quality grade is determined by marbling & carcass age.
more info here: http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/bqa/manual/appendix/qualitygrds.htm(i actually learned to do this in class at MSU.)
http://ars.sdstate.edu/AnimalEval/Beef/beefgrade.htm
http://ars.sdstate.edu/AnimalEval/Evalhome.htm
livestock diets are designed to be efficient. it’s a balance of input cost, time on feed, & output.
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: Whoa. Really slept in today. Oops.
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this link has a lot of good info & references on organic vs. conventional
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/faq/BuyOrganicFoodsC.shtml
tonya´s last blog ..rcwant2be: #seahawks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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All About Beans « Nourishing Food Diary // May 31, 2010 at 6:09 pm
[...] beans: Black bean soup, in Mexican chilli (with chile ancho powder, yum), refried in manteca with onion as side dish, in salads with salsa-ranch and corn, in bean dip, enfrijoladas (tortillas [...]
My dad has always kept a cup of bacon grease on the back of the stove. The other night I cooked up 2 pounds of bacon for a “breakfast for dinner” get together with friends and I decided to save the grease. I have it in the cupboard. Does it really need to be refrigerated? My dad never refrigerated his.
AmandaonMaui´s last blog ..First Food I Ever Cooked
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tonya Reply:
June 15th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
if you’re really on Maui, I’d say yes, put it in the fridge. Warm temps will make it go bad/rancid really quick.
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AmandaonMaui Reply:
June 15th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
LOL I really am on Maui, and often my coconut oil is liquid as we don’t have air conditioning (most people don’t on the mountainside).
The fat is now in the fridge!
AmandaonMaui´s last blog ..First Food I Ever Cooked
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Lard Butt and Proud of It « Kitchen Kung Fu: Return to the Old Ways // Jul 24, 2010 at 10:47 am
[...] announced that lard was a primary cause of the health crisis in this country. I informed him that lard is a health food. As I further thought about it, how many decades has it been since lard was prevalently used in [...]