Any reason to use lard instead of other oils.
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pictonguy
Sous Chef
Contrary to popular dogma, for heath reasons and of course taste.
msmofet
Chef Extraordinaire
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I don't see any harm using lard in moderation. Makes great biscuits and pie crust.
Yeah, but my grandma on my dad's side used it daily in all of her cooking. She lived to be nearly 90. Maybe she could have added 5-10 years to her life if she had a more heart-healthy diet, but she loved cooking and eating delicious food!
GotGarlic
Chef Extraordinaire
Newer research has shown that high cholesterol levels are mostly inherited and eating foods high in saturated fat doesn't affect people's levels much, if at all. So enjoy in moderation, like everything else ☺
Compared with polyunsaturated oils, lard won't create as many free radicals at higher cooking temperatures.
dr morbius
Senior Cook
For some things, lard is essential if you want it taste right. An example is piadina, an Italian flatbread from the Emilia-Romagna region. It's wonderful and pretty easy to make. You can make it with olive oil, but if you want it taste authentic, you must have lard. You can make biscuits and pie dough with butter instead of lard, but the difference in flavor is immediately noticeable. I will make this point, though: if you plan to buy and use lard, buy the smallest amount you can. It doesn't keep very long.
My mother used lard for pie crusts and biscuits. That's it. She said it was too heavy and had a different melting point to use it in cookies, cakes, etc. It is how I grew up and how I cook today. I always use it in crusts and biscuits but never tried it in anything else.
pictonguy
Sous Chef
Lard keeps really well, around 5 months in the cupboard and if you put in the fridge it will keep for about 1 year. I always keep one pkg in the fridge. I'll use it for frying mostly and I always have ghee on hand as well which have similar storage times.
Ghee is similarly (to lard) good at not creating free radicals when used for deep frying.
pepperhead212
Executive Chef
Some Mexican foods have lard, and are not the same without. And in Mexican groceries you can often get flavorful lard, not that stuff that tastes like crisco.
dr morbius
Senior Cook
Hmm. I bought some a few years ago and it leaked out of the box in my cupboard. I don't recall how long passed between the time I bought it and I tossed it, but I don't think it was anywhere near five months. I may buy it again with the intent of refrigerating it, but I have little time to cook these days so maybe not.
Maybe one should not keep it in the cupboard in the summertime, perhaps?
Yes, I understand. My grandparents and great- grandparents gew up using lard for cooking also because olive oil was too expensive. Those who were lucky to own olive plantations produced olive oil but only used it for salads, it was considered "too precious" to use for cooking.
Yes it's true that high cholesterol levels are mostly inherited, so these unlucky ones need to pay extra attention not to increase their levels even more, by cutting down on animal fats
.The original piadina recipe definitely uses lard, it wouldn't taste like that otherwise and wouldn't have that texture.
We have an Easter gastronomical speciality, the "pizza piena" which is made with a dough requiring lard, to create a particularly flaky, delicious pastry.
My MIL used to make her own homemade lard by boiling pig fat. In the end you're left with pork rinds and a fatty liquid which you pour into jars, to set, and end up with homemade strutto (lard).
My mother makes this too.
Forgot to add that we (not me, my mum still bakes it) make the "pizza con ciccioli" with the pork rinds. As our old saying goes : "when pigs are butchered, nothing goes to waste".
pictonguy
Sous Chef
Yeah, that sounds like a pretty hot room, lard is quite solid at room temp and while it doesn't have as much saturated fat as tallow it shouldn't have melted, I actually have never seen that happen. I've had both virgin coconut oil and duck fat turn liquid on me in a hot kitchen though.
pictonguy
Sous Chef
It's the polyunsaturated fat content that is of concern and since all animal fat are extremely low in poly fat they react less to heat damage. Free radicals, or should I say oxidative deterioration begins at 302 degrees fahrenheit which then form new compounds like free radicals, yeah not what you want to be consuming.
The other major health concern with consuming oils high in polyunsaturated fat (most seed oils) is chronic inflammation, which is the basic foundation from which all non communicable diseases like insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease begin.
Our basic physiology has been a work in progress over the last 2 or 3 million years and what we've decided works for us is an omega 6 to omega 3 ratio anywhere from a 1:1 to a 4:1 ratio. Today and actually the last 50+ years that ratio has increased to around 15:1 to as high as 30:1 depending on variables like social and economic factors and race. Basically too much plant oil and not enough fish oil. This imbalance drive chronic inflammation.
There's been a feeble attempt to introduce omega 3's in the food supply to lower that ratio, but it's pretty well useless considering the amounts that would actually be needed and the fact that the omega 3's they're using are not from fish oil but are plant omega oils referred to as ALA which the human body need to convert to EPA, which is the actual essential fat we need, and that conversion is really really low, and then that converted EPA needs to be further converted to DHA which ends up being less than 1%. It's basically virtue signaling to an uninformed pupil at large, but they do know it does nothing but it opens up a new commodity and source of income for their shareholders.
This can basically be traced back to when crisco took industrial seed oils pretty much used exclusively as lubricants for machinery in 1909 and created an edible fat that looked like lard and then after the wars during economical hardships these got really popular and then of course we were told that animal fat, cholesterol and red meat is killing everyone with the diet heart hypothesis, yeah not the smartest thing the USDA has ever done, which ushered in the high carb low fat era, nevertheless that dogma will be a tough one to shed.
Even the Indian population was convinced and switched out their ghee with these oils and now they are the leading country for heart disease in the world and have more people with diabetes and Insulin resistance than the USA and that's saying something. I would never ever advice anyone to consume these refined seed oils. Use a refined olive oil, avocado oil for cooking if some feels they still can't get their head around that animal fat and mother nature might not be trying to kill us.
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