nourishing

Last night I heard a lecture by Jennifer McLagan, author of the book Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient With Recipes. The audience members were mostly foodies, who have really embraced fat in the past few years, but Jennifer gave an impassioned lecture on why they should embrace even more fat and throw out industrial oils. She talked about how the government, lobbied by industry, encouraged people to substitute "healthy" oils and margarine for animal fat, but how our health since has gotten worse, not better. 

She revealed how many vegetable oils are so highly processed that you can't even tell if they are rancid or not, and she said most of them are. It makes sense, as in processing they are exposed to heat, and then stored in clear bottle so they are exposed to light. Heat and light are the agents of rancidity. Consuming rancid oils is highly linked to inflammation and to make the deal worse, most of the oils are high in omega-6, which is also inflammatory. She told us to use animal fats from pastured animals, which hold up well to cooking and have a ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 appropriate for humans.

Jennifer talked about the least appreciated animal fats, suet and tallow, and how we are missing out on hearty flavorful foods featuring them. Personally, I just discovered tallow and it's harder to cook with than lard because of its strong flavor. However, when used in a way that accents and offsets that flavor, it is absolutely delicious.

I was shocked to hear that milk laws in Canada, where she lives, do not allow for the production of artisan butter! Jennifer talked about the wonderful complex flavors in grass-fed butter and how much our health has declined since we have discarded it in many baked goods for oil and more sugar to offset the loss of flavor.

What can we do to bring fat back? Jennifer said we all have to lose our irrational fear of animal fat and start cooking with it. She said the loss of home cooking is what has really destroyed our diets, making us serfs of companies that simply use whatever is cheapest. Most people don't know what tallow is and they certainly don't know how to use it.

It's a little distressing in the paleo community how oil still reigns. Even if it's the healthier oils, coconut and olive, they still wouldn't have been a part of our ancestor's diets. Learning how to render and use these fats is something everyone on any diet can benefit from. Her cookbook is a wonderful resource for overcoming fat-phobia. It's also wonderfully appropriate as a gift for friends. It's not preaching a diet, it's just celebrating the wonders of fat.