I thought the candle wax consistency was a coincidence, but it was the main way to make candles for most of history. It tastes pretty good but has a strong smell when cooking (or burning as a candle, presumably).
[0] https://fireinabottle.net/every-fire-in-a-bottle-post-from-t...
EDIT: I'm sympathetic to Brad's argument and I'm concerned that RFK Jr's incompetence will interfere with ongoing research in this area of metabolism.
However, the problem is that the public has also come to that conclusion. The public has gone on to decide "that means my incredibly weakly-evidenced idea is just as good as the expert opinions" which does not follow and is often disastrously wrong.
So I'm also sympathetic to the idea that the saturated fat picture is more complex than a blanket ban suggests. But I know better than to treat things like Brad's arguments as anything other than "interesting hypothesis" as opposed to "something we actually know about nutrition."
On what basis? Using the list of smoke point table someone else linked[1], tallow does indeed have a high smoke point, but it's unclear how it's better than many other oils in that list (peanut, sunflower, soybean) which are far easier to procure.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...
That last one is not necessarily a bad thing. You haven’t truly had popcorn till you’ve had beef tallow popcorn.
How is lard meaningfully different than tallow or vegetable oil? Being animal fat, isn't it approximately the same as tallow?
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3t902pqt3C7nGN99hV...
I prefer lard because it's slightly lower in saturated than tallow, and doesn't alter taste so much.
Avocado oil has a smoke point of 500F, which is what I use for high heat cooking. By contrast lard is only 370F, which means it supplies less flexibility than avocado oil.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Smoke_point_of_cookin...
> Bread grows on trees, apparently
I don't doubt that one can find health benefits in beef tallow. But I also vividly remember ads in the 80s and 90s that promoted the health benefits of seed oils and margarines, which years later proved to be cherry-picked facts. So, I'm skeptical on whether we have the same thing happening, only now it is beef tallow that is promoted by cherry-picking studies.
And frankly, RFKs "new pyramid" is at least misguided, if not worse. Bread and grains at the bottom of the pyramid make no sense. In mediterranean countries (e.g. Italy, Greece, Spain) bread and pasta are on the table in ample quantities every single day. And guess who has longer life expectancy than the US.
Saturated fat looks good when you replace trans fat
Red meat looks to be neutral when you eeplace refined grains
Doesn't mean there aren't better options though
I guess I'm old now, because I remember when it was a big deal that McDonald's switched from using tallow.
Deep frying your fries in beef tallow is an absolutely incredible experience, each bite is so rich and satisfying. We definitely lost something in the switch.
Is beef tallow a better option for a cooking fat? I think it is.
Unless you're claiming that it tastes better, then sure, beef tallow is pretty tasty.
Canola and other seed oils are made using toxic solvents which are not full removed from the final product.
This is simply untrue. Independent bodies all over the world regularly test commercially available oils for toxic solvents. While the solvent Hexane is indeed commonly used in the extraction of refined vegetable oils, it is later removed in the refining process.
For example Stiftung Warentest, an independent consumer advocacy organization tested 23 rapeseed oils available in German supermarkets and they all came out clean [1].
A few years earlier, they tested 25 "specialty oils" and found traces of Hexane in only one of them - but still way below the EU threshold of 1 mg/kg. [2]
Here is a study from Japan that tested a bunch of vegetable oils and came to the conclusion that none of the products contained dangerous levels of Hexane. The maximum amount the researchers found was 42.6 µg/kg (again way below the EU threshold) - but in most samples the amount they found was so low they couldn't even get a reading or they didn't find any Hexane at all.
Besides, for cold-pressed oils, no solvents are used at all.
[1] https://www.test.de/Rapsoel-im-Test-1816151-0/
[2] https://www.test.de/Gourmet-Oele-Fast-jedes-zweite-ist-mange...
[3] https://openaccesspub.org/experimental-and-clinical-toxicolo...
Sydney heart diet study: Seed oil group had something like 62% higher death rate.
Minnesota coronary experiment: replaced saturated fats with seed oil, cholesterol dropped, but for every 30 mg/dL drop risk of death went up something like 20%.
Several recent meta analyses also indicate no real benefit migrating from saturated fats to seed oils. The only silver lining I have seen is there is some evidence replacing them for people who have had a coronary event already. So, no, I don't think the evidence supports "seed oils do much better" in a general sense.
Actually on a quick check the sydney study looks to be the exact same
Olive oil? Peanut oil? No and (mostly) no.
Compared to hydrogenated margarine that was pushed a couple of decades ago before we learned about trans-fats? Of course.
If you use it when cooking for guests, you should disclose that you're using it (especially for non-meat dishes) because it may add extra fat that they're not OK with or consider inappropriate for personal dietary consumption (they're vegetarian, don't eat beef products, whatever).
I have a friend for whom we can't use anything that has sunflower oil in it, which is _really hard to avoid_ in surprising ways (there are spice blends that I use which have a bit of sunflower oil in the mixes).
That sort of overwhelms the omega ratios. As I understand it, both fish oil and (fresh) flax seed oil are still better than tallow.
With RFK's dismantling of good science, politics can't be put aside, as his reasons are essentially "because I said so".
Arguably the "healthiest" cooking oil is olive oil. If we're looking at just the fatty acids though, replacing SFA with PUFAs is a stronger predictor of lower CVD and all-cause mortality.
Politics aside, the omega6:3 ratio and PUFA content of tallow is favorable.
That changes my perception from "maybe that's a good point" to "spammers should die painfully."
I've made this example before, but it bears repeating.
I know absolutely nothing about chemistry, medicine, or healthcare policy. I am wholly unqualifed to be in charge of anything involving healthcare. Suppose that, despite all reason, I am appointed into a HHS secretary anyway. This would be bad, but because I know that I know nothing, my potential for damage is actually pretty limited. I would have to defer a lot of decisions to advisors, who would likely be doctors and chemists and data scientists. I probably wouldn't make a lot of "progress", and I would likely more or less just maintain the status quo, but I probably wouldn't make things much worse.
RFK Jr. is the worst, because he doesn't know any more about health or medicine than I do, but because he's read a bunch of idiotic blogs and Facebook pages he thinks he knows better than the entire medical establishment, and because he thinks he knows everything he feels qualified to start cutting funding for American medical research and blame everything on people not eating enough beef fat.
People have been (understandably) focusing on Trump's descent into authoritarianism, but it's possible that that gets somewhat fixed once he's out of office, but I think that the damage that RFK Jr. has done to our medical research establishment might be irreparable. He is uniquely dangerous.
Yet still here we are
If you look at pseudoscience "alternative health" treatments on YouTube, they always have some disclaimer saying "This is not medical advice, I am not a physician, please consult your doctor", and then immediately go on to tell you about how injecting yourself with ozone or drinking paint thinner will cure all your diseases. I think it's just a legal disclaimer, not like they are actually aware that what they're doing is bullshit.
I think you have missed the part about why we are in this situation.
People are absolutely fed up with the medical establishment. There is no way to twist this.
Now, everyone trying to fix the medical establishment is immediately called an anti vaxxer, science denier, etc.
At some point it was inevitable that we get someone who can shrug these labels off because they do not have a scientific reputation that can be killed with these labels.
My point is, again, we are in this situation because sane attempts to fix things has not worked to an extent that people will literally try anything.
I haven't read the article ("too hard, didn't care"), but as a foodie:
- in certain food circles, it never went away - industrially, McD's in at least North America used beef tallow as one of the par-frying oils for their fries well into the 21st century -- which caused a stir amongst vegetarians and Hindu who had assumed that the fries were vegetarian (I remember stories here in Canada in 2002-2003) - beef tallow is now fascionable, which accounts for the reactionary resurgence for something that never really went away - the science is very clear that the new guidance from RFK's worm-eaten brain is junk - the science is also very clear that while saturated fats like beef tallow are bad for you compared to olive oil and seed oils, they're better than hydrogenated fats and trans-fat products that were pushed on the world for a couple of decades a couple of decades ago
Beef tallow is a net good inasmuch as it helps ensure whole animal use, but that doesn't make it healthy or suitable for all diets.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
For some foods the being-solid-at-room-temperature property can be important for texture.
But the premise of the original article (that beef tallow ever went away, which is required for a comeback) is deeply flawed, and the fascionable junk science from RFK is the dumbest possible reason to use beef tallow.
Just don't expect me (a vegetarian) to eat anything that has beef tallow, and expect me to be very pissed off if I later learn a restaurant or food manufacturer uses beef tallow without disclosing it, because that's taking choice away from me.
I recommend reading the article.
But the reality is that there's insufficient science for the promotion of beef tallow in RFK's health treason. For large groups of people it's off limits due to personal dietary restrictions (religious or animal product avoidance) and would be contraindicated for anyone who currently has cardiovascular diseases involving high cholesterol.
Use beef tallow, don't use beef tallow. I don't care unless I'm possibly eating food that you have prepared or manufactured (because I don't want rendered animal fats in my food). But don't pretend that it's a health food. It isn't, but can still be eaten in moderation by anyone who _doesn't_ mind beef products in their food.
So you’re proposing that the FDA should promote a vegan diet to cater to the lowest common denominator?
Source for Americans needing more omega-6-fatty-acid intake?
> seed oils
Do we have evidence around seed oils? Or is this the new homeopathy?
I expect that, to the extent there's a problem, it's that they are an additive to most packaged/ultra-processed food products which can be non-satiating, and therefore boosts overall consumption of fats and calories. Sugar of course is another component.