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 all that much when it comes to your health? The reality, as usual, is a little

bit more complicated.

Music as usual, is a little bit 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 Reinagle, 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 french 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 versus unsaturated fat. So let's take a more nuanced look

at the pros and cons of this new trend. When people talk about seed oils these days, they are

usually referring to vegetable oil made from soybean, corn, sunflower, or safflower seeds. These are the oils that are

most often used in commercial frying. And compared to these oils, beef tallow is much higher in saturated

fat. While most vegetable oil contains between 5 to 15% saturated fat, about half of the fat in beef tallow is saturated.

And eating more saturated fat generally raises LDL cholesterol.

That's the type that's most strongly linked to cardiovascular disease risk.

And that's one of the main reasons that public health guidelines recommend limiting saturated fat to about 10% of your daily

calories. That's going to be around 20 grams per day. So let's translate that into real food.

One egg contains less than two grams of saturated fat,

about the same as in a tablespoon of vegetable oil. A glass of whole milk contains five grams.

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