Grass-fed beef fat vs pork fat

Hi, I was going to post this somewhere else, but I thought I might get more detailed answers here. I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I am grinding up some venison into burger meat, and I am going to add some fat to get it to around 85%. My initial intention was to try to find local grass-fed beef fat, because I like beef, and I want the grass-fed properties. That has proven surprisingly difficult, so I settled for some pork fat at the farmer's market just now. My question is, what is the health difference in general there, between grass-fed beef fat (suet, i guess?) and pork fat. I cannot really find a good comparison anywhere. Is there a large compromise I am making in the types of fat used here, and I might as well have just gone with grain-fed beef?

so the beef suet is 94% fat. The composition is about 50-55% saturated,40% monounsaturated and 3-6% polyunsaturated fatty acid. Tallows have several percent of an antimicrobial fatty acid palmitoleic acid.

Lard  is more or less the equivalent of tallow in its usage, except that it has more unsaturated and can become rancid if not handled properly. Usually it is about 40% saturated, 50% monounsaturated, and 10% polyunsaturated.

This is taken from the famous Mary G Enig Ph.D book Know your fats.


Now i imagine, grass fed beef tallow or suet would taste different than say grain fed tallow.

the pig would really depend on the diet it was fed.

jordan barton wrote:so the beef suet is 94% fat. The composition is about 50-55% saturated,40% monounsaturated and 3-6% polyunsaturated fatty acid. Tallows have several percent of an antimicrobial fatty acid palmitoleic acid.

Lard  is more or less the equivalent of tallow in its usage, except that it has more unsaturated and can become rancid if not handled properly. Usually it is about 40% saturated, 50% monounsaturated, and 10% polyunsaturated.

This is taken from the famous Mary G Enig Ph.D book Know your fats.


Now i imagine, grass fed beef tallow or suet would taste different than say grain fed tallow.

the pig would really depend on the diet it was fed.

That is good info, thanks. Do you have any experience in doing your own grinding? Taste is subjective, but in general do you have an opinion if pork vs beef fat would taste better?

Hi Adam;
I have been an avid hunter of elk & deer all my life.
When I shoot an elk , the entire front half and quite a bit of the back half all go in the burger bucket. Some deer only the backstraps and tenderloins become steak, the rest goes in the burger bucket.
Every summer I raise 3 organic wiener pigs for slaughter.  
When I have my pig butchered. I have them save and grind #15 of fat. This I have added to the elk burger ... HMMM good!
In my opinion pork fat is superior to beef fat in wild game.  I have done both and to me pork fat just tastes better.

alright excellent, thank you. This is my first deer and my first time grinding anything. I will make it roughly 15% fat total. I will freeze the fat, the meat is already frozen. I will then thaw it for a couple days, which will make it semi frozen still. I will freeze the grinding attachments. Meat is already cubed. I will cube the fat also, and add an appropriate amount of fat cubes with the meat cubes. Grind it once course, and then again medium, hopefully this will evenly distribute the fat. Does this sound like the correct way to go?

Hey Adam;  
That sounds good, but I have never ground my own before.
To easy to take it down to a butcher and let him run it thru an industrial grinder.
Then they quick freeze it. They give me a call , I go give them $40 or so and I get back over #100 of nice little frozen burger pacs!
Easy Easy!
I should add that my butcher works from his home in small lots.
I never doubt that what I get back, is what I brought him.
Large high volume butcher shops, I wonder if they are as good about keeping meat separate. (I'm sure most are)

thomas rubino wrote:Hey Adam;  
That sounds good, but I have never ground my own before.
To easy to take it down to a butcher and let him run it thru an industrial grinder.
Then they quick freeze it. They give me a call , I go give them $40 or so and I get back over #100 of nice little frozen burger pacs!
Easy Easy!
I should add that my butcher works from his home in small lots.
I never doubt that what I get back, is what I brought him.
Large high volume butcher shops, I wonder if they are as good about keeping meat separate. (I'm sure most are)

alright thanks, we will see how it goes. I wanted to try it myself at least once. There are not a lot of processors around me where i am confident that i will get my own animal back, and not one that sat in the sun for a few hours before it was handled, so I don't want to risk treating the animal disrespectfully. Thanks for the input, i was hoping someone who hunted wild game would have some feedback. The hunting forum I used suggested grinding it with bacon, which sounds tasty but expensive.

By the way Adam,   Congratulations on your first deer !  May there be many more in your future!

thomas rubino wrote:By the way Adam,   Congratulations on your first deer !  May there be many more in your future!

Thanks. I am highly jealous of your elk hunting, they don't exist down here. That actually leads me to two other questions i think you could answer. Do you have mule deer out there? if so, do you notice a difference in taste between mule deer and whitetail? And, is there a difference in taste between whitetail and elk?

Yes and Yes
We have both whitetail and mule deer.
Because of the heavy timber here, the mule deer live up high in the mountains and eat poorly.  They are large , much larger than the whitetail, but (in my opinion) they taste horrible! I won't shoot one anymore. Don't care how big the rack is, it's just not worth it.
In eastern Montana the mule deer live in the valley eating from Alfalfa / sugar beet fields. They taste great and the locals over there call whitetails (leggy German shepherds) they won't shoot one...
The whitetails here all live down in the valleys and graze hay fields all night. They taste outstanding. I won't shoot anything but.

Now Elk... MMM good !  Different from deer, but in my opinion they are the best!  
In my younger days I of course wanted the "big" bull.   Let me tell you, shoot the spike/rag horn  bull instead. Bigger than the cows ,but oh so tasty and tender.
You didn't mention Moose... larger than an elk and just as tasty, they can be a little tougher though.

thomas rubino wrote:Yes and Yes
We have both whitetail and mule deer.
Because of the heavy timber here, the mule deer live up high in the mountains and eat poorly.  They are large , much larger than the whitetail, but (in my opinion) they taste horrible! I won't shoot one anymore. Don't care how big the rack is, it's just not worth it.
In eastern Montana the mule deer live in the valley eating from Alfalfa / sugar beet fields. They taste great and the locals over there call whitetails (leggy German shepherds) they won't shoot one...
The whitetails here all live down in the valleys and graze hay fields all night. They taste outstanding. I won't shoot anything but.

Now Elk... MMM good !  Different from deer, but in my opinion they are the best!  
In my younger days I of course wanted the "big" bull.   Let me tell you, shoot the spike/rag horn  bull instead. Bigger than the cows ,but oh so tasty and tender.
You didn't mention Moose... larger than an elk and just as tasty, they can be a little tougher though.

alright, that is very good to know, putting in for one of the elk lotteries in TN or NC might be worth it, although i am sure they are slightly different. My inlaws live in Maine and I think Moose hunting would be interesting, but i just couldnt imagine they would have tasted good, based on how they look.