Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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I am guessing we (developed countries) are wasting a lot of fat (e.g., from beef). I am able to get huge chunks of pastured suet for free, and I don't think this is an anomaly. Are slaughter houses/butchers throwing away a lot of fat? How much do you think this adds up to? Anywhere close to enough to offset industrial seed oil consumption?

I understand fear of saturated fat would steer most consumers to a seed oil instead, but grocery stores do sell plenty of foods that most people agree are unhealthy. Maybe once people saw how well food fries and tastes with tallow, there could be a market for it (ironically, perhaps among the less health conscious consumers)? I believe McDonalds adds beef flavor to their french fry oil to try to replicate the french fry flavor from decades ago when they used to fry in tallow.

It seems the process of rendering tallow shouldn't be that difficult/expensive to do on a large scale and the fat should be very cheap to obtain. If pastured tallow were produced this way and sold in bottles next to the canola oil, would we be okay with it? Or, would there be the same complaints/concerns about industrial processing, chemicals, bleaching, deodorizing, etc?

flag	asked May 11 2012 at 17:19 Mike T 10.3k●1●13●41

jo60 · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-11 22:07:41Z UTC

When I was young(er) always a request to the butcher for a big extra chunk of fat to tack onto the roast. That was how I learned to cook and kept it up all my life. No lean meat for us. what is not used generally goes to the rendering plant for further processing..all the waste- ends up recycled and put into all kinds of things. It is not thrown away.

Stabby · Answer 2 · 2012-05-12 05:39:44Z UTC

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The buses in my city run on processed beef tallow! It is ridiculous. That is how much is being wasted.

Then again I'm not sure if I would want to eat that beef tallow, but that's a problem too. Make better beef tallow and actually eat it, I say.

answered May 12 2012 at 5:39

Stabby
16.9k●1●14●62

really interesting! – Mike T May 19 2012 at 18:34

Amy B. · Answer 3 · 2012-05-12 01:26:08Z UTC

I'm not sure on this, but don't they use some of it in pet food and also as industrial oils and lubricants?

Kind of pity if so. (I mean, I'd be glad if it didn't end up on the slaughterhouse floor and then in the trash, but it seems like there are better food uses for it than in heavy industry. And then again, not sure how much "extra" tallow and lard I'd want to consume if it was CAFO meat. And I do eat some CAFO meat for financial reasons, but if I ever go out of my way to use the rendered fats, it's from grassfed, from farmers I know and trust. )

AmandaLP · Answer 4 · 2012-05-12 02:03:03Z UTC

Read up on rendering plants. If you ever eat conventional chicken, you may change your mind. (I.e. the end product of "meat and bone meal" is fed to chickens, and chicken litter is fed to cows.)

But, the whole rendering industry was created as a way to make animals more profitable. Edible tallow goes to places that still use it, and the rest goes places including some soaps (I think Ivory soap uses tallow), biodiesel, and pet food.

One of the good thing about "artisan butchers" is that they tend to love animal fats, and know how to use them. As the demand for high quality grass fed beef increases, the demand for fat products will increase as well, giving mainstream butchers the opportunity to sell more. Once they can make money with it, they will sell it.

Jill E. · Answer 5 · 2012-05-11 17:31:36Z UTC

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I wouldn't use it unless a commercial brand came about that I trusted - like Kerrygold for butter. But I think it would be great for those "less health conscious consumers" who use it for the better taste while frying. Suckers.

answered May 11 2012 at 17:31

Jill E.
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	Thanks. Is it because otherwise you wouldn't have confidence that the cows were 100% grass fed organic? Or because you'd be worried about the processing method? Or both? Or something else? – Mike T May 11 2012 at 17:36
	Ah, I wasn't necessarily talking about pastured cows, but I see you were. In that case I'd be OK with it, but I'm sure the stuff I get straight from my farmer would be cheaper. – Jill E. May 11 2012 at 17:42
	Yes, hard to compete with homemade from locally sourced ingredients, but this would require a lot less effort which might appeal to many. – Mike T May 11 2012 at 17:56

How much fat are we wasting?

5 Answers