[halostatue]

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

[jmalicki]

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.

[halostatue]

I have no disagreement with this and I think I said as much.

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.

[bowmessage]

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.

[margalabargala]

Evidence for the negative effects of omega 6s and specifically seed oils is at best fuzzy and conflicting, plenty of studies have found little to no difference. Research on the subject is as best inconclusive.

[JumpCrisscross]

> tallow has a favorable omega 6 to omega 3 ratio

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?

[halostatue]

I won't bother as I'm vegetarian, which means that I really don't care the "supposed" benefits (which likely pale compared to the ingestion of long chain saturated fats present in beef tallow, as opposed to the short and medium chain saturated fats present in coconut oil). Beef tallow is irrelevant to me except for restaurateurs or food manufacturers who use it without disclosing it. (One should disclose its use in any case. For people who avoid pork, knowing that your product contains "beef lard" instead of "whatever lard was cheapest this week" matters, because they can't do "pork lard".)

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.

[quietbritishjim]

> 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

Everything I've read says that McDonald's switched globally to vegetable oil in the early 1990s. I think you've misremembered.

[bluGill]

Right. They used solid blocks in the 1990s, but it was vegetable oil not beef tallow. Of course to make vegetable oil a solid block they had to make it a trans-far which is worse than saturated fat (as we now know, but didn't then). In the late 1990s they switched to a liquid oil, though I don't know how what it was (I suspect it still had a lot of trans fats, but I don't have information on the composition). I quit just after that, but I think they switched the fat used again in the early 2000s to something that was pure vegetable oil.