[HN Gopher] Is beef tallow making a comeback?
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Is beef tallow making a comeback?
https://archive.ph/kuEd2
Author : gjkood
Score : 10 points
Date : 2026-01-10 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| almosthere wrote:
| Select One ( ) Long Life ( ) Good Life
| reactordev wrote:
| You can have both and not clog your arteries
| amelius wrote:
| I guess by far the majority of people on this planet selected:
| ( ) Shitty and short life
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| RFK's playbook is to wake up, check what the crunchy moms on
| instagram are cackling about, issue policy based on the comments
| sections.
| bowmessage wrote:
| Remove whatever politics you might believe from the equation.
|
| Is beef tallow a better option for a cooking fat? I think it
| is.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Our own health department has completely removed objectivity
| from their process. It doesn't matter if they say something
| right or wrong now, they've completely lost our trust.
| bowmessage wrote:
| I don't particularly trust any claims from previous
| administrations' health departments, let alone this one.
|
| Politics aside, the omega6:3 ratio and PUFA content of
| tallow is favorable.
| halostatue wrote:
| Compared to what and for what purpose?
|
| 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).
| AstroBen wrote:
| Avocado, canola, olive oil would all be way better. Beef
| tallow is really high in saturated fat
| tombert wrote:
| 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
| reasons, 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.
| relax88 wrote:
| Might wanna put some shoes on before you deep fry your turkey.
| Rendello wrote:
| 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).
| halostatue wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
| bowmessage wrote:
| Beef tallow has a favorable omega 6 to omega 3 ratio and low
| levels of PUFAs, compared to seed oils and other cooking fats.
|
| I recommend reading the article.
| jmalicki wrote:
| 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.
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