He's almost the perfect example of the colloquial stereotype of "Dunning Kruger Syndrome", which is why he's so dangerous.
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.
I made it a few years ago. Tallow is trendy (and thus expensive), but you make it by rendering suet which is basically a throw-away product at butcher shops. Lots don't even bother selling suet, which is a pain. Rendering was just slow-cooking and removing the little pieces, then you're left with candle wax you can cook with.
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).
If I understand it correctly, tallow is made from beef or mutton. The same principle can be applied to pork fat -- and presumably any other herbivore? -- to create lard. Which is is also delicous for fries.
Yes, the difference is that tallow is solid at room temperature, so great for preservation. I was planning on making pemmican with it, but slicing, drying, and pulverizing hundreds of tiny strips of meat seemed like a lot of work.
Not to be flippant, but we know that the answer to that is "No" because of Betteridge's Law of Headlines[1].
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.
If you are deep frying, for e.g. french fries, any cooking oil that is solid at room temperature can keep them from being greasy. This includes beef tallow, but also coconut oil for a vegetable-based oil.
For some foods the being-solid-at-room-temperature property can be important for texture.
It's kind of mentioned in the article, but I'm more comfortable cooking with lard than either tallow or oil based on the current evidence. Avoiding UPF is probably the most important factor though.
butter burns more easily, unless clarified. for things like chips/fries i've always found goose or duck fat to be best, but high end UK chip shops swear by beef lard.
That’s really the purpose of beef tallow. It starts at suet, which both butcher shops I frequent consider a waste product, then you chop or grind the suet, render it down for around eight hours and use it for cooking. It adds flavour where there wasn’t flavour or where the existing flavours didn’t pair as well with other foods.
It works really well with certain foods. As an example, poutine is quite popular now. A classic poutine calls for a brown sauce, which is a gravy made with equal parts beef and chicken stock. If you cook the fries in beef tallow, you get the full depth of the brown sauce.
Or if someone you really like is coming over for a steak and some beers make steak frites. Blanch the fries first, let them dry completely, deep fry them, let them cool and then when the steaks are cooling, put some tallow in the cast iron, let it flash and then drop your fries in to fry them a final time.
This concludes this week’s episode of Cooking with Greg where I impart food knowledge that tried to kill me. Tune in next week when I talk about more of the reasons I had a heart attack in my late thirties. :)
Brad Marshall[0] makes a case for the benefits of stearic acid (C18:0), which is predominant in beef tallow and cocoa butter. It acts as a beneficial metabolic signal that promotes mitochondrial fat oxidation, higher energy expenditure, and leanness—counteracting the obesogenic effects of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), especially linoleic acid.
Taking one fatty acid out of a complex fat like tallow and therefore extrapolating that "tallow is good for you and everyone" is a huge mistake.
Does Brad Marshall mention that Palmitic acid is the dominant fatty acid in tallow? And since Palmitic acid is the most abundant SFA in the U.S. diet, can we draw a conclusion that it may partially play a role in poor health outcomes?
PUFA suppress lipogenic gene expression so I do not know where anyone is getting that polyunsaturated fats have and obesogenic effect. [1]
It's not healthy in the least, but attempts to help fans understand why it is so are met with resistance due to ingrained biases and skepticism of the establishment.
The pushback against "institutional nutrition" has been a long time coming and is honestly welcomed as health and nutrition science have evolved from the days of telling us to avoid all fat and offering consumers "low calorie" processed foods that didn't do our bodies much good.
In the same way the bacon craze of the 2000s was a successful marketing effort from pork farmers, cattle farmers (and their lobbying groups) are now having a moment with beef and subsequent beef products. Good nutritional science has been pointing to many fats (but not all fats) actually being good for our diet, contrary to those old institutional guidelines, but there's a lot of nuance around adding fats back to a person's diet. Many aren't making the distinction between saturated vs unsaturated fat as well as UDL and LDL cholesterol that ends up in our bloodstream (one of those is not good for us!).
But in an era of memes, misinformation, and context collapse good luck trying to have that more complicated discussion with people when the nutritional aspect is brought up (the book is closed on the flavor debate of course, it's delicious)
I remember Kentucky Fried Chicken tasting really really good as a kid. Their fries, too. We used to go bananas when my parents would bring home a bucket.
Then something changed in the 90s. I've been told it was a switch from frying in beef tallow to using vegetable oil.
As an outside observer of this beef tallow trend, it looks to me a lot like a fad driven by some internalized machismo: "It's not proper food if it's not from a dead animal." While this is not unique to the US, apparently believers of this in the US reached a critical mass enough to make it public policy.
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.
Aren't Americans the kind of people who will cut the fat and gristle out of their rib-eye and leave it on the plate? And it was like a thing of pride to not eat the fatty part because look how rich we are ... Now they suddenly all into slurping beef tallow. What?
i dont think it takes machismo to say that frying in animal fat is tastier than frying in whatever the hell constitues canola oil , as well your american breads and pastas are probably significantly less healthy than the european equivalent
> As an outside observer of this beef tallow trend, it looks to me a lot like a fad driven by some internalized machismo: "It's not proper food if it's not from a dead animal."
Well, it's a response to the green/eco push for making do with protein from insects and plants only and that it's bad and wrong to have nice things because global warming and sustainability.
It's not a "something died for this so therefore it's better", it's "stop commanding me to not have nice things".
I was looking for duck fat to roast some potatoes in. The store didn't have it but they did have beef tallow. I gave it a shot. Worked great. I'd get it again
I would make Foie Gras Torchon which is Foie Gras that has been cured like gravlax and then wrapped in a cheese cloth (hence the name) and cooked slowly in duck fat, confit.
I would end up with a 1/2 gallon of foie gras infused (normal) duck fat.
Decided to make french fries using it. It was the best fries I have ever had.
Someone on this thread is able to speak to the argument that has been made about beef being specifically the animal meat to not eat due to its ability to raise inflammation in the system. I had one of the top level specialists say that people with high cholesterol should only eat beef once a year due to its ability to raise inflammation in the circulatory system.
Wouldn't beef tallow be along the same line? It's seems contradictory that beef tallow is the next greatest thing yet also ramping up inflammation internally. I can't square the circle here (I haven't done a deep dive though).
[Edit: I looked into it --> Beef uniquely raises ApoB-containing particles in susceptible people + Saturated fat from beef down-regulates LDL receptors].
[Edit 2: Beef tallow is worse than eating beef since it is a concentrated version of what I wrote about in edit 1]
42 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 73.1 ms ] threadI'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.
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).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemmican
I'm afraid to ask but regardless: you use the lard as a replacement for oil when frying/cooking fries, or as like a condiment/sauce/something?
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
I recommend reading the article.
For some foods the being-solid-at-room-temperature property can be important for texture.
Everything I've read says that McDonald's switched globally to vegetable oil in the early 1990s. I think you've misremembered.
Whereas beef tallow smells of roast beef.
It works really well with certain foods. As an example, poutine is quite popular now. A classic poutine calls for a brown sauce, which is a gravy made with equal parts beef and chicken stock. If you cook the fries in beef tallow, you get the full depth of the brown sauce.
Or if someone you really like is coming over for a steak and some beers make steak frites. Blanch the fries first, let them dry completely, deep fry them, let them cool and then when the steaks are cooling, put some tallow in the cast iron, let it flash and then drop your fries in to fry them a final time.
This concludes this week’s episode of Cooking with Greg where I impart food knowledge that tried to kill me. Tune in next week when I talk about more of the reasons I had a heart attack in my late thirties. :)
[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.
Does Brad Marshall mention that Palmitic acid is the dominant fatty acid in tallow? And since Palmitic acid is the most abundant SFA in the U.S. diet, can we draw a conclusion that it may partially play a role in poor health outcomes?
PUFA suppress lipogenic gene expression so I do not know where anyone is getting that polyunsaturated fats have and obesogenic effect. [1]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65613-2
The pushback against "institutional nutrition" has been a long time coming and is honestly welcomed as health and nutrition science have evolved from the days of telling us to avoid all fat and offering consumers "low calorie" processed foods that didn't do our bodies much good.
In the same way the bacon craze of the 2000s was a successful marketing effort from pork farmers, cattle farmers (and their lobbying groups) are now having a moment with beef and subsequent beef products. Good nutritional science has been pointing to many fats (but not all fats) actually being good for our diet, contrary to those old institutional guidelines, but there's a lot of nuance around adding fats back to a person's diet. Many aren't making the distinction between saturated vs unsaturated fat as well as UDL and LDL cholesterol that ends up in our bloodstream (one of those is not good for us!).
But in an era of memes, misinformation, and context collapse good luck trying to have that more complicated discussion with people when the nutritional aspect is brought up (the book is closed on the flavor debate of course, it's delicious)
I guess I'm old now, because I remember when it was a big deal that McDonald's switched from using tallow.
Then something changed in the 90s. I've been told it was a switch from frying in beef tallow to using vegetable oil.
It's just disgusting now.
This would then be used for frying etc.. I imagine my parents would have used it when they were young for "dripping" sandwiches.
Maybe this was just a UK thing?
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.
Well, it's a response to the green/eco push for making do with protein from insects and plants only and that it's bad and wrong to have nice things because global warming and sustainability.
It's not a "something died for this so therefore it's better", it's "stop commanding me to not have nice things".
I would end up with a 1/2 gallon of foie gras infused (normal) duck fat.
Decided to make french fries using it. It was the best fries I have ever had.
Nonetheless, I would never eat like that today.
Wouldn't beef tallow be along the same line? It's seems contradictory that beef tallow is the next greatest thing yet also ramping up inflammation internally. I can't square the circle here (I haven't done a deep dive though).
[Edit: I looked into it --> Beef uniquely raises ApoB-containing particles in susceptible people + Saturated fat from beef down-regulates LDL receptors].
[Edit 2: Beef tallow is worse than eating beef since it is a concentrated version of what I wrote about in edit 1]