I have never heard about beef tallow before (or maybe I did but just didn’t pay enough attention) until one day when I found my sister all busy in the kitchen, a huge pot on the stove in front of her. She’d been at it the entire morning and I just had to ask her what dish she was making or what she was experimenting on this time.
“I’m making a beef tallow to be made into soap and shampoo bar,” she said nonchalantly in our vernacular. “Beef what?” my uninformed self asked.
That day, I read whatever I could find from reputable sources online about this lovely beef tallow my sister was talking about.
A staple in the kitchen
A long time ago, long before olive oil, canola, or coconut oil became popular cooking aids, beef tallow was a favorite kitchen staple. It was said that our forefathers considered tallow as an important nutrition-giving ingredient. Evidence of this can be found in cookbooks from the 1800s to 1900s wherein many recipes feature liberal amounts of tallow.
This unusual cooking fat is making a comeback and there are good reasons for it, which are scientifically supported. But before we go through that, let us first find out what beef tallow is.
Simply put, it is rendered, or heat-processed beef fat. The rendering process involves gently cooking and liquifying raw beef fat, which was what my sister was doing the moment I was introduced to her lovely beef tallow. Once it has been liquified, it is allowed to cool and harden. The hardened off-white butter-like tallow is a good substitute for butter or cooking oil. But it’s not only that. Beef tallow combined with other necessary ingredients can be made into soap, skin moisturizer, or shampoo bar, among other products.
Beef tallow was popular back then and persisted well until the 1950s when American Physiologist Ancel Benjamin Keys, who popularized the K-rations and Mediterranean diets, hypothesized that replacing dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat reduces cardiovascular heart disease.
Moreso, modern dietary recommendations by health organizations, systematic reviews, and national health agencies corroborate this claim. This has somehow frightened people away from saturated fat.
However, this does not take away the fact that beef tallow—especially if it is sourced from a grass-feed animal—is a nourishing food, and when consumed moderately, just like any other nutrient-rich food, one will reap its benefits.
Health benefits and nutrition values
Beef tallow is 100 percent fat by weight, with no carbohydrates or protein, and most of the fat is saturated. It is rich in healthy fats and fat-soluble vitamins; promotes fat-burning; prevents oxidative damage; and nourishes the skin, among other benefits.
Beef tallow is rich in a wide variety of healthy fatty acids including monounsaturated fatty acids like palmitoleic acid, saturated fatty acids like palmitic acid and stearic acid, and natural trans fats like conjugated linoleic acid. Palmitoleic acid, an omega-7 fat, is one of our skin’s most elemental building blocks and plays a vital role in maintaining heart health and insulin sensitivity. It’s also good for the skin and hair as it counters the oxidative damage that occurs when the skin gets too much sun exposure. Studies also show that palmitoleic acid may also boost collagen and elastin production. Palmitic acid, like palmitoleic acid, can improve skin health by strengthening the barrier function of your skin, and helps build the sphingolipid portion of cell membrane playing a role as signaling molecules.
The fat found in tallow is a good source of nutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, and vitamin E, which are all vital for every aspect of cellular function as some play a role in growth, while others in immune support. Many fat-soluble vitamins also have a potent antioxidant effect.
Grass-fed tallow is slightly higher in vitamin A than muscle meat. Vitamin A plays an essential role in cell production and differentiation, especially in skin and eye cells. Tallow is also a modest source of vitamin D as well as Vitamin E, which is a powerful antioxidant. It also prevents LDL cholesterol from getting oxidized which can cause inflammation in our arteries.
Grass-fed tallow contains small amounts of vitamin K2, a nutrient associated with improved cardiovascular health. Vitamin K also works to keep calcium in bones.
Keep your blood sugar and insulin relatively low, and your body should be able to stay in fat-burning mode. Bear in mind that some of beef tallow’s individual fatty acids can also help your body liberate fatty acids from fat stores and use them for fuel.
There are articles from reputable sources that said that saturated fats in beef tallow may also promote longevity; the more saturated fat you eat, the more saturated your body’s cell membranes tend to become, and that higher levels of cell membrane saturation protect your cells from glycation, oxidation, endotoxin buildup, and other types of stress. It was also mentioned that Rodent studies have found that a tallow-rich diet can suppress colon cancer.
Tallow nourishes the skin, whether it’s ingested or applied topically. If you want to improve your complexion and boost your skincare regimen, apply tallow directly onto your skin. Infuse botanicals or antioxidants (like vitamin E) into your tallow to make a special skincare product. In my sister’s concoction, she used jojoba and extra virgin olive oil for her body soap and shampoo bar. Tallow’s fatty acid profile closely matches the makeup of our skin’s sebum oil. I guess it is for this reason that the word “sebum” means tallow in Latin.
So if you’d like to up the ante of your skincare game or looking for a nourishing, stable, and smoke-free cooking oil, try beef tallow. Order online or make one at home. Its 420° smoke point means tallow can be used for baking, sautéing, and frying.
Speaking of frying, here’s some trivia: Did you know that the original McDonald’s French Fry was 93 percent beef tallow-fried and that has made it famous? Sadly it is now extinct. McDonald’s switched to ‘heart-healthy’ vegetable oils probably due to the so-called scaremongering in the 1990s. It is said that even the fast-food critics of long ago had a hard time denying that these original tallow-fried fries were simply delicious.
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