Finally... A Fat That Can Handle the Heat!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if nature had provided a heat-stable cooking fat instead of us having to rely on heavily-processed artery-clogging oils in the kitchen?

Oh wait… nature did give us that.  It’s called tallow. Tallow is animal fat, particularly from cattle and other bovine species. It’s been used for thousands of years across global meat-eating cultures.  

Aside from its delicious flavor and healthy cooking qualities, its purpose throughout history has been plentiful.  For some cultures, such as Native Americans, its use was a mandate of the spiritual principle that every part of an animal should be used so that it didn’t give its life only to be wasted.  For others, such as Europeans, tallow was an affordable route to a calorie-rich diet, in a time and environment where food instability was basically guaranteed.

Throughout history, tallow has played every role in Western life. Amongst working class Europeans, tallow was an affordable all-purpose base for food, candles, soap, and skincare products.  It became the frontier sustenance for early American pioneers, a machinery lubricant in the Industrial Revolution, and the main cooking ingredient at the dawn of fast-food restaurants such as McDonalds.

Beef tallow essentially held a monopoly on fat in the West for ten thousand years until the spread of vegetable oils in the 1990s.  Yes, it was only thirty years ago that these highly toxic oils became an inescapable part of the Western diet.  In most of our lifetimes, we have been subject to the switch from familiar animal fats to indigestible and outright harmful plant fats. 

This health experiment is being challenged at last - the United States is seeing a resurgence in beef tallow use.  This is only one aspect of a grassroots movement started by American mothers to remove harmful ingredients from their children’s food supply.  It has since been championed by fast-food giant Steak ’n Shake, with many other restaurants following suit.  So, it’s more important now than ever that we understand why this shift is happening and how it benefits us.

If you’re unfamiliar with the science of vegetable and seed oils, it’s important to first understand how these are harmful to the body and why beef tallow is a serious upgrade for our health.  Most common cooking oil are more than fifty percent polyunsaturated fat.  This basically means that they are incredibly unstable, oxidizing and breaking quickly into free radicals - inflammatory byproducts - when exposed to heat, light, or air.  That’s a bad quality for a so-called ‘cooking’ oil to have.  Additionally, the process of making these oils is heavily-laden with chemicals that leave residue in the final product, adding to the inflammatory nature of cooking oils.

Quick side note - I know ‘free radicals’ sounds like a fun indie rock band or a rebel with a cause, but these are more like the creepy-cult-type of radical that wants dominion over your mind and body for no good reason.  

Free radicals cause inflammation.  Why is inflammation so bad?  When your body is battling toxins, it suffers on a cellular level.  Your cells become so bogged down with what is essentially chemical warfare that they have to divert energy from essential bodily processes, like digesting and thinking, to fight off the toxins.  

What's worse is that this can leave your cells maimed even after the toxins are filtered out of the body.  Imagine sending a man to the front-lines of battle with an already wounded stomach or head.  No matter how hard he’s trying, he’ll never be able to fight or defend himself as well as he could have before he was wounded.  So, every time you eat an inflammatory food, you’re sending cells into battle when they should still be recovering from the last fight.  Eventually, they’ll have nothing left to give, and can no longer participate as active contributors to your bodily systems.

Maybe I got carried away just now, but oil-induced inflammation is something deeply personal for me - I couldn’t take a deep breath for two years due to unhealthy cooking oils.  Doctors couldn’t figure it out and didn’t even bother to test me.  One chocked it up to asthma and prescribed me an inhaler.  That’s a great way to treat the symptom, but it is so much better to weed out the issue at its source.  It wasn’t until my friend pointed out that my breathing was at its worse on days when I ate out (I only used butter at home) that I made the connection between lung inflammation and oil.

You don’t have to have trouble breathing to find out that oils have a harmful effect on you too.  Not to be a debby-downer, but inflammation can show up in your body in hundreds of ways.  The only way to know how it’s affecting you is to give your body time to behave without toxins in its system.  Take a week to avoid oils and other unhealthy foods and notice what parts of you feel better after a few days.  You might have a symptom you thought was just ‘normal’ or ‘part of the aging process’ that you actually should never have had to experience at all.

All that to say… if you have an alternative to a food that is verifiably harmful, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.  You might find that it changes your life in a way that even doctors told you wasn’t possible.

So - how is beef tallow better?  Beef tallow is only four percent polyunsaturated fat, as opposed to cooking oil’s fifty percent or higher.  It is mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat, meaning it has a high heat stability and doesn’t easily breakdown while cooking.  This limits oxidation and the subsequent free radicals that wreak havoc on your body.  

You can find an even better option for healthy cooking if you look for beef tallow from grass-fed cattle.  Grass-fed cattle store higher levels of fatty acid, meaning that anti-inflammatory linoleic acid is widely present in grass-fed products, but not normal grain-fed ones.  Linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid, but it has to be obtained from food, as your body can’t produce it. 

On that note, let’s acknowledge another cooking oil red flag: many cooking oil labels proclaim “rich in Linoleic acid!” or “contains omega-6 fatty acids,” but this is actually one of the many parts of oil that breaks down into free radicals when exposed to heat, light, or air.  So, though cooking oils may shout from the shelves “I’m healthy! Eat me!,” it is essential that you don’t fall for their lies.  They are a mere Trojan horse, claiming to be a gift when they’re actually a weapon.

Beef tallow is not a Trojan horse, it’s a for real gift, allowing our favorite delicious foods, such as French fries (Yes!) to be enjoyed without regret.  Heat, light, and air will not turn your beef tallow against you.  

Vitamin K2 is richly present in beef tallow, supporting heart and bone health.  Tallow is complementary to vitamin-rich foods in your diet, as it helps the body to absorb fat-soluble vitamins, such as A, D, and E.  Each of these is present in beef tallow, acting together as a protective force from the inside out.

Yet, like all good things, beef tallow should not be taken in excess.  Due to its caloric density, it should be eaten mindfully - it’s not open season for fried foods.  However, if you maintain a generally healthy diet of nutritious foods, you shouldn’t have much to worry about.

In fact, if you’re trying to lose weight or just cut down on carbs, beef tallow has a lot to offer.  It’s a very high satiety food, meaning tallow will leave you feeling satisfied and full longer than other foods and fats would.  Beef tallow triggers the release of hormones that indicate fullness, naturally curbing your cravings for more food.  

For ketosis, which is the desired goal of intermittent-fasting or the ketogenic diet, beef tallow is perfectly designed.  If you aren’t familiar with ketosis, its objective is basically to move your body from burning glucose into burning fat.  This prevents the constant rise and fall of glucose and insulin levels in the body that result in feelings of “crashing” or fatigue after meals.  Fat provides a much steadier and long-lasting energy for the body than glucose, giving your brain and essential functions a stable and constant supply of fuel.  But let’s not make this just about weight - if you’re someone who regularly has brain fog or other bodily fatigue, you probably need a lower-carb higher-fat and protein diet.  

Compared to other healthy fats, beef tallow maintains an outstanding lead in healthfulness.  Tallow has more vitamins than ghee and coconut oil and less carbohydrates than butter.  It does have a distinct savoriness, so it is perfect for cooking savory foods or even neutral baked goods like bread or croissants, but not optimal for dessert.  It is second only to ghee in its smoking point, meaning it is the second most stable of the healthy cooking fats.   

Its use extends beyond food, acting as a suitable skin-protectant for any skin type.  Tallow can be applied as a moisturizer or as an anti-inflammatory for irritated or inflamed skin.  When applied topically, tallow protects skin from wind, cold, and even air pollution, making it an exceptional and natural option for people in cold climates and for anyone with sensitive skin.  If you don’t want to walk around smelling like a beef brisket, have no fear - high quality tallow typically does not have any scent.  Some recipes for tallow skin salve even add essential oils to give it a classic floral scent without any of the usual harmful additives.

Most grocery stores carry beef tallow already.  But, if you’re having a hard time finding it and want to give it a try, you can even buy it on Amazon and have it delivered.  Gentle reminder to search for grass-fed whenever possible, as you will get a healthier, more nutrient rich product. 

You can make tallow yourself by saving or buying trimmings of beef suet (hard fat).  You’ll need a fine mesh strainer, a large pot, and a tempered glass bowl or jar for storage.  Simply cut the fat into approximately equal, small pieces.  Add a small amount of water to a stovetop pot, add the fat, bring the water to a simmer, then leave on low heat.  Stir occasionally, leaving it on the stove for several hours, until the fat and the solids separate, leaving a translucent yellow tallow.  

Let this cool, strain the liquid tallow into the jar through fine mesh or cheesecloth.  Discard the remaining solids.  If you don’t want to use the stovetop method, there are other options; as always, doing your own research is key, both for your health and your kitchen.  Once you have the tallow, allow it to cool and solidify.  Store it in the refrigerator.  For long term storage, be sure to use a secure, air-tight container.

Whether you buy it from the grocery store or make it yourself, tallow is still the delicious and nutritious fat that your brain and body have been seeking.  What may have been considered an indulgence five years ago is now nothing short of a necessity, as we witness the affects of highly inflammatory fats such as cooking oils on our health and that of our communities.  For most of us, our ancestors have been consuming animal fats for thousands of years.  That’s what our body knows; that’s what our body can digest and use for the betterment of every cell.

When you replace less healthy fats with tallow, you’re allowing yourself and everyone you cook for to experience satiety - satisfaction from true nourishment that only rich, natural calories can offer.  Expel the bland, underwhelming flavors of processed oils that offer neither nutrients nor taste to your food, and replace them with the complex, hearty flavor of tallow.  Whether you’re frying eggs for breakfast or potatoes for dinner, beef tallow completes your recipes in a way that fake foods simply can’t.