I don’t think there’s a soothsayer around who can predict what sorts of horrific and damaging things the US executive branch and Donald Trump will do next. As a US citizen, I’m heartsick, angry and flummoxed about how to proceed (beyond calling, donating, doing good where I can).
But there’s one recent event, courtesy of Trump’s newly appointed head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr. (RFK), that I can speak to with confidence. It has to do with beef tallow.
Apparently RFK is taking some time off from misleading Americans about the efficacy of the measles vaccine to hawk the virtues of french fries cooked in beef tallow.
Now, that seems random.
So, what’s the story? Let’s let the Guardian take over from here.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, appeared with a cheeseburger and fries in a nationally televised interview on Fox News – a highly unusual move for a federal health official.
The appearance, in which he endorsed the decision of the burger chain Steak ‘n Shake to cook its fries in beef tallow, comes as Kennedy has attacked seed oils and made claims about the measles vaccine that lack context.
“We are poisoning ourselves and it’s coming principally from these ultra-processed foods,” said Kennedy, while seated at a table with the Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“President Trump wants us to have radical transparency and incentivize companies like this one to switch traditional ingredients for beef tallow,” Kennedy added, before he was delivered a double cheeseburger and french fries at a restaurant location in Florida.
Good response, yellow smiley. It’s totally not right.
Kennedy is attacking the use of seed oils (e.g. canola, sunflower, safflower oils) in fast food products. He claims that beef tallow is healthier than these oils for frying foods.
In case you’ve forgotten/never known: beef tallow is the rendered fat of animals, made from the hard fat around the organs of ruminants (cows, sheep, etc.) If you’d like to know how to make it, here’s a helpful how-to site. But pictures are worth a thousand words:
Now, to give beef tallow its due, various folks swear by it as a facial moisturizer (Eeeew! but you know, different strokes…) And, as a substrate for frying, it has a very high smoke point (400 degrees F/204C). But is it good for you, or even more implausibly, better for you than, say, sunflower oil?
But in case you’d like to hear from actual experts, here’s one, from this NPR article:
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and head of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, told NPR he’s glad Kennedy is concerned about ultra processed foods and the diet-related disease epidemic, which he calls an urgent national crisis.
But, “concern around seed oils is really a distraction, and we need to be focusing on the real problems,” he says.
The real villains, says Mozaffarian, are excessive amounts of refined grains, starches, and sugars, as well as salt and other preservatives, chemical additives, and contaminants from packaging.
“Seed oils are actually the bright spot,” he says. “Seed oils are healthy fats, healthy monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fats that are really good for our bodies.”
He notes that seed oils are well researched and have “incredible evidence” of health benefits, including studies showing they’re linked with lower cholesterol levels and heart disease; randomized trials have shown that consuming seed oil does not cause inflammation.
I might add that, for any of us interested in reducing our intake of animal products, beef tallow is pretty much at the top of the “really, stop eating this” list. Promoting it is perverse, non-health-directed, based on serious falsehoods, and designed to promote particular fast-food chain businesses.
I’m not saying that eating fat is bad. Fat is an important part of any diet. But why go to all the trouble, ickiness, health risk, and moral hazard of consuming beef tallow when an avocado would do nicely instead? I mean:
I rest my case.