Remove whatever politics you might believe from the equation.
Is beef tallow a better option for a cooking fat? I think it is.
It's probably still better to avoid eating french fries regardless of what they're fried in. That would probably lead to better health outcomes regardless.
Unless you're claiming that it tastes better, then sure, beef tallow is pretty tasty.
Avocado, canola, olive oil would all be way better. Beef tallow is really high in saturated fat
The omega6:3 ratio and PUFA content of tallow is favorable.
Canola and other seed oils are made using toxic solvents which are not full removed from the final product.
> 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...
Go look up the studies of actual outcome data when replacing saturated fats with seed oils. Seed oils do much better
Are you sure?
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.
I don't have time to look into the sydney heart study but I know for the minnesota experiment they, not knowing how bad it was at the time, used margarine with high trans fats as the replacements. Also had a huge 95% drop out rate
Actually on a quick check the sydney study looks to be the exact same
Look at a meta review. There are a ton of these studies and the overwhelming evidence is that saturated fat is associated with CVD and ACM, PUFAs are not.
have you seen the amount of antibiotics, hormones and ammonia used in meat production?
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).
Politics aside, the omega6:3 ratio and PUFA content of tallow is favorable.
Tallow is still higher in long chain SFAs than vegetable saturated fats, which are less healthy than short and medium chain SFAs (but neither is as good as PUFAs).
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".
Omega ratio matters most taking total intake of 3 and 6 into account. Since tallow is overwhelmingly saturated fat, it's a moot point what the ratio is. The remedy to low omega-3 is just to consume more dominant EPA/DHA and even ALA sources. Omega 6 won't fly off the charts except through consuming lots of packaged boxed foods and ultraprocessed foods, which overwhelming use vegetable oils like soybean or sunflower (North American fat consumption has skyrocketed over a century mostly owing to these foods). Even if you consume some nuts or seed oil now and then, just consume fish or a supplement.
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.
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.
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.
You've made this comment three times so far.
That changes my perception from "maybe that's a good point" to "spammers should die painfully."
I’m with you, repeating it is like low effort copy pasta when they should’ve put effort into backing up that claim.
Hey! You forgot to mention about its favorable omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. /s
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 think he's actively lying with this to have some amount of plausible deniability.
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.
> he thinks he knows better than the entire medical establishment
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.
The solution is to fix the medical establishment, not to appoint a person trained by Facebook moms and and natural food blogs.
Yes, I agree.
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.