836. Fast-food chains are frying their French fries in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil. Is this actually a healthier choice—or just clever marketing?
836. Fast-food chains are frying their French fries in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil. Is this actually a healthier choice—or just clever marketing?
Episodes mentioned in this episode:
185: Does the Ratio of Omega 6 Really Matter?
763: What’s the problem with seed oils
Find a transcript here.
Have you heard? French fries cooked in beef tallow are making a comeback—and this is supposed to be better for you than fries cooked in vegetable oil. But does swapping one frying fat for another really change much when it comes to your health? The reality, as usual, is a little more complicated.
Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, a show where we take a closer look at nutrition news, research, and trends so that you can make more informed decisions about what you eat. I’m your host, Monica Reinagel, and today’s episode was suggested by Noah, who wrote:
“A fast-food chain in my area is promoting its use of beef tallow to cook its fries, as a healthy alternative to seed oils. I assume unsaturated fats are still preferred from a health perspective, but are there some benefits to beef tallow compared to other sources of saturated fat?”
As Noah suggests, this issue is more complex than just saturated vs unsaturated fat. Let’s take a more nuanced look at the pros and cons of this new trend.
When people talk about “seed oils,” they’re usually referring to vegetable oil made from soybean, corn, sunflower, or safflower seeds. These are the oils most often used in commercial frying. And compared to these oils, beef tallow is much higher in saturated fat.
While most vegetable oils contain 5 to 15% saturated fat, about half of the fat in beef tallow is saturated. And eating more saturated fat generally raises LDL cholesterol, the type most strongly linked to cardiovascular disease risk. That’s one of the main reasons public health guidelines recommend limiting saturated fat intake to about 10% of daily calories, or around 20 grams/day.
Let’s translate that into real food: One egg contains less than 2 grams of saturated fat–about the same as in a tablespoon of vegetable oil. A glass of whole milk contains 5 grams. A hamburger, a tablespoon of butter, or an ounce of cheese each contain about 7 grams. Perhaps the most concentrated food source of saturated fat is coconut oil, with 12 grams per tablespoon.
However, there are different types of saturated fat. The saturated fat in tallow is mostly palmitic acid and stearic acid. Palmitic acid is the one that pushes LDL higher, while stearic acid appears to have a more neutral effect. That mix makes beef tallow a little different from, say, butter or palm oil, both of which are heavier on the cholesterol-raising side.
There are also scientists who argue that the role of saturated fat in heart disease has been overstated, pointing to studies that show more complex relationships between diet, cholesterol, and health outcomes. Still, the majority of evidence suggests that lowering saturated fat intake (usually, by replacing some of it with unsaturated fat) is a safer bet for heart health.
But earlier I said that about half of the fat in beef tallow is saturated. Guess what the other half is? It’s mostly monounsaturated fat—specifically, oleic acid. That’s the same heart-healthy fat found in olive oil.
In terms of heart health, monounsaturated fats have a solid track record: they can help improve cholesterol profiles and reduce inflammation. Diets that are rich in monounsaturated fats—like the much touted Mediterranean diet—are linked with lower rates of cardiovascular disease.
But, while beef tallow does contain some beneficial monounsaturated fat, that doesn’t necessarily cancel out the potential risks of its higher saturated fat content.
But there’s still a lot more nuance to this question. Just as there is more than one type of saturated fat, unsaturated fats are also a big family, and the different members play differently. With the exception of canola oil, which is quite high in monounsaturated fats, most vegetable oils are predominantly polyunsaturated fats. And when we start talking about PUFAs, another controversy crops up.
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Polyunsaturated fats include both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, both of which are essential to our health. While most of us get plenty of omega-6s (primarily from vegetable oils) we generally fall short on the recommended amount of omega-3s (which are found in fish, flaxseed, chia seeds, and walnuts). And some researchers have suggested that this imbalance could fuel inflammation. Observational studies do show that people with higher omega-6 to omega-3 ratios often have more markers of inflammation.
On the other hand, large clinical trials haven’t found that diets higher in omega-6 fats increase inflammation or raise cardiovascular risk. In fact, when those omega-6 fats are replacing saturated fat, it pretty reliably lowers LDL cholesterol. And some prominent experts insist that concerns about a high intake of omega-6 (or, a high ratio of omega 6 to omega 3) are unfounded.
(For more on this debate, please see episode #185: Does the Ratio of Omega 6 Really Matter?)
Where I land is somewhere in between: I don’t think that omega-6 fats are inherently inflammatory or unhealthy. But most of the omega-6 in our diets comes from processed and packaged foods that are not necessarily very nutritious–things like chips, and baked goods. If we reduce our consumption of these foods, it could improve the omega-ratio of the diet. But I suspect the true benefit lies more in improving the overall nutritional quality of the diet.
Meanwhile, most of us could also benefit from increasing our intake of fish and other omega-3 rich foods. And here’s another irony for you: Canola oil, one of the most maligned of the so-called “seed oils,” is actually not only rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats but also unusually high in omega-3 fatty acids. And that is another example of how the campaign against “seed oils” misses a lot of important nuance and context. (And for a closer look at some of the other charges that have been leveled at seed oils, please see ep #763: What’s the problem with seed oils).
So far, we’ve been talking about the types of fats these oils contain and how they work in the body. But when we start talking cooking with those oils, it raises some new issues. When fats are exposed to very high heat, as they are during deep frying, they can start to break down and form new compounds. And here’s where beef tallow may offer a real advantage.
Saturated and monounsaturated fats (the primary types of fat in tallow) are both relatively stable at high temperatures. Polyunsaturated fats, by contrast, are less stable at frying temperatures. That makes them more prone to breaking down and forming compounds that, in large amounts, could be harmful. This concern is compounded when the oil is used repeatedly–as it usually is in restaurant settings.
So, where does all of this leave us in regard to Noah’s original question?
Beef tallow does have some advantages. It is more stable at high heat than most vegetable oil. Although it does contain a lot of saturated fat, at least some of it is in the form of stearic acid, which may be easier on cholesterol than other types of saturated fat (such as those found in butter or palm oil). And it also contains a fair amount of monounsaturated fat–which is generally a good thing.
On the other hand, using it to cook French fries turns an otherwise vegan food into an animal food. If the main concern were heat stability, there are plant-based oils that are a lot lower in PUFAs—like high-oleic safflower or canola oil. The irony is that many of the same voices promoting beef tallow as the “healthier” option have also vilified safflower and canola simply because they come from seeds.
But you know what? None of this turns French Fries into a health food. And that’s what this whole thing ultimately boils down to: How often are you eating French fries (and the foods and beverages that tend to go with them)? If it's several times a week, frying them in beef tallow isn’t going to transform that into a healthy or sustainable diet pattern. And if it's only a couple of times a month, it probably doesn't matter that much what they are fried in.
I want to thank Noah for this timely–and thoughtful–question. And if you have a question you can do what Noah did, which was to email me at nutrition@quickanddirtytips.com. And if you are an educator or health professional, these are the types of topics that I regularly present on in educational settings and at professional meetings throughout the country. For more information, please check out wellnessworkshere.com
Nutrition Diva is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Holly Hutchings is our Director of Podcasts. Steve Riekeberg is our audio engineer, Morgan Christianson heads up Podcast Operations & Advertising, and Rebekah Sebastian, is our Manager of Marketing and Publicity and Nat Hoopes is our Marketing and Operations Assistant. Thanks to all of them and thanks to you for listening!
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