good lard is a health food!

Acres USA sep 2009, page 33:  the article goes on to talk about a range of lards and how it is related to what the pigs eat. 

Pigs eating organic is way better, of course. 

And a diet rich in nuts is really good too!

Anybody else get AcresUSA?

I do! its a fun mag.

there have been several studies showing that modern feeding practices affect the fat profile, probably negatively, of the animals that consume it. certainly the same has been found to be true of chicken fat and milk fat. (thats why I want grain free milkers or as close as I can get to it) teh following is about the changes in fat and subsequent butter in cows fed fresh grass http://jds.fass.org/cgi/content/abstract/89/6/1956

I recently butchered one of my older hens that had been exclusively free ranging. in comparison to "store bought" chickens there was soooo little fat (I didn't even bother skimming it off in the stock) and the fat was a bright yellow. it always drives home the difference. when I make stock from store bought chicken I will sometimes be able to get almost a whole pint of pale fat. it smells different too. better.

We have a new butcher in my little town, Bill the Butcher, who only sells local, organic or sustainably raised meats.  Yum, yum and YEA!!! 

Speaking of how things taste, Leah, (cool reference article, btw--amazing health benefits in the grass fed milk and butter!) Bill the Butcher also happens to be a master chef. He knows about rotational grazing, and only carries grass fed beef, though he'd never heard of permaculture until I asked him about it.  What he did tell me, however, is that beef tastes better when they graze on grass that is just the right height.

Sometimes the things that taste good are good for us. I love it!

thats cool info jocelyn! and it makes good sense. since plants surely have different componants at different vegetative stages it stands to reason that both the taste and componants of the meat or products would be affected by the stage the plant was eaten at. I look forward to any new research that comes out regarding the specifics of the differences in naturally fed animals and the products we obtain from them.

nothing makes better pasteries

Fats are defiantly healthy.   In fact without fats we would die.  Omega 3 fatty acids are really important to be consuming.  Most of you guys know a lot of this.   The problem with our current store bought diet is that most things purchased at a store do not contain enough omega 3 fatty acids.  That is because most meats and dary products come from animals raised on a grain feed. Grains (Corn, wheat, etc.)  Have a large ammount of Omega 6 fatty acids and not many omega 3s.  So when you feed them grain they retain the fatty acids of the grain. 

Grass and bug fed chickens will have more omega 3s then grain feed chickens. Same for Cows fed grain over grass.

When you consume a high ratio of omega 6's over 3's it promotes inflation in the body that can lead to all kinds of degenative diseases. Heart disease, stroke, alzetimers etc.  Inflammation is considered the 2nd leading cause of disease.

There is a ton of information on this subject If your questioning my logic or don't get what I am saying I would suggest some research on omega 3' fatty acids. 

So I would caution against lard from animals being fed grain. And I would advocate on the healthyness of lard from animals eating grasses and bugs or other food from their original diet before domestication.

Omega 3 fatty acids have been show to help reduce overall weight, increase brain, heart and nerve functions.

The amazing part of all of this research on Omega 3 fatty acids is that it is far more healthier to eat animals and their by products which they themselves eating their natural diet. 

Of course you can feed your chickens and animals manufactured feed that has more grass and plants that contain omega 3's that works as well.

Leah talking of your growing feed for animals, you suggested growing millet for your hens , I afterwards saw a documentary on Africa, on  place where they grow millet and it grows really high they were walking around in a feild full of millet stalks like a forest it grows way above their huts with a biggish head of grain on it ,i though you would be suprised if such a big plants strated to grow from your seed .
    I have just been loooking up millet it seems their are lots of varieties. agri rose macaskie.

the varieties are a bit overwhelming. I have seen pictures of giant millet plants also! i wonder if it is more the variety or the growing conditions that produce such large plants?

slightly on topic....I have read conflicting information regarding the affects of millet in the diet on the omega fat composition of the animal products. one of my main reasons for really wanting to grow millet was that I read that chickens fed millet had eggs that had good omega fat profile in comparison to primarily corn, wheat or soy fed chickens and a certain percentage of millet replacing grain had the same affect on milk (also lowered production if I remember correctly though, but I am ok with less milk of better quality, I prefer forage fed milk anyway). now I have read references that say the opposite! argh...its all so hard to weedle out sometimes. 

Leah Sattler.
      I heard that fish get their omega from seaweed. Seaweed  fed chickens might be good, better than fishmeal fed ones! I like seaweed i bet sewaweed fed chickens would be delicious.
      I heard somewhere that mountain plants in Greece give goats omega 3. I can remember one plant said to have it, "portulaca oleracea", If you put its name into google there is a paper, "portulaca olearosa plants poisonous to live stock Cornell univeristy". that is good on it and surprisignly, after the title, makes you go on wanting to grow it for chickens. This title it comes about third down when you tap "portulaca oleracea" the article itself, though it says it has substances that can be poisonouse says that there is no record of it poisoning things and say what its medicinal uses are such as killing parasites! so sepp holzer related in as much as he talks of having plants that can get rid of parasites.  the book i first read about it in was talking of how it is used as salad in many coutries even by the romans. it does have omega 3 according to Cornell University. Their is another portulaga that is called chickenweed which name makes it sound as if it might be good for chickens.
  They sell maches here, a salad plant full of omega 3, i have just looked it up, the most american sounding name for it is corn salad, it is also called rapunzel, so of fairy tale fame and officially it is valerianella lacosta. i don't know how easy it is to grow it seems it is a winter salad .
        I have just read that animals feed on grass usuallly have plenty of omega 3  in  products then y produce  but i have seen hens leave land absolultely without grass, i wonder how much land you would have to have to keep hens in grass. Maybe they should have enormouse runs on moutain sides for them. Others plants metioned in an article i have just seen are are flax quinoa that is like millet maybe its a type of millet you can buy it in health food shops here as you can seaweed. Nits and algae.

      Pretty disconnected. I was thinking in reference to hens that they should collect the locust from plagues of locusts and freeze them or dry them for hens. That would be more productive than getting rid of plagues of locusts. I have just seen a doucmentary on plagues of locusts in Africa two days ago. They have machines that blow leaves around here, they could get machines that suck up locusts and a helicpoter that carried them off and froze them. agri rose macaskie.

Leah Sattler wrote:
I have read conflicting information regarding the affects of millet in the diet on the omega fat composition of the animal products.

Unfortunately, the word "millet" seems to mean a lifestyle more than a family relationship: there are lots of entirely un-related species of plant called "millet."  Here's the abstract of a peer-reviewed journal article:

Production of Omega-3 Fatty Acid Enriched Eggs Using Pearl Millet Grain, Low Levels of Flaxseed and Natural Pigments

C.A. Ruiz-Feria and K. Amini 

Abstract: We have previously reported that pearl millet (PM) could substitute corn and reduce the amount of flaxseed (8%, FS) needed to produce omega-3 enriched eggs in a 6 week trial, but reduced yolk pigmentation. In this experiment we evaluated egg fatty acid (FA) profile, yolk pigmentation, laying performance, and liver integrity in a 12 week experiment using PM-based diets with lower levels of FS (4, 6 and 8%) and natural pigments (PG, 0.1% and 0.2%) in a factorial arrangement of treatments (six cage replicates per treatment). Diets were formulated to be isocaloric and isonitrogenous and to meet or exceed NRC requirements. Egg number and egg mass produced were measured and recorded on a daily basis, whereas BW and feed consumption measurements were recorded every two weeks. At the end of each two week period, three eggs were collected from each cage to measure egg trait parameters and then yolks were separated, pooled and lyophilized for FA determination by Gas Chromatography. At the end of the experiment, all the hens were euthanized to determine liver integrity. Egg traits and flock performance parameters, were not different among treatments, except in week 8, 10 and 12, when birds fed PM-based diets including 8% FS produced smaller (P < 0.05) eggs than hens fed 4% FS. The inclusion of the PG at 0.1% restored yolk pigmentation to marketable levels (above 7 on the Roche® color fan scale). In summary, birds fed a diet containing PM as the sole grain source and 6% FS, consistently produced eggs with more than 350 mg/egg of n-3 FA, which is the lower standard to market eggs as “omega-3 enriched”, whereas hens fed the diet containing 8% FS produced eggs with about 500 mg/kg of n-3 FA. Liver integrity was not affected by dietary treatment. Thus, PM based diets with levels as low as 6% of FS and low levels of natural PG (0.1%) can be used to produce n-3 FA enriched eggs, preserving egg quality and restoring yolk color, and maintaining hen health and productive performance.

The take-away seems to be that pearl millet helps, but flax seed helps more.  But pearl millet is not as good for yolk pigmentation, so chickens with no access to greens need vegetable dye in their feed on this diet.    Greens also help omega-3 content a lot, especially (as Rose mentioned) seaweed, algae, and portulaca.

I've just planted some blue flax this autumn, we'll see how it does.  A friend of mine keeps chickens, and I bet she'd appreciate seeds if I produce a lot.

in vulgar tongur portulaca is called moss rose pretty garden plant i have one without knowing its name till now and ii planted it on ta bit of wall on th eoff chance that it woudl surveiive and it does it flowers like crazy all summer. I have seen the wild sort on the edges of roads i have one right know that started growing on a balcony it is the first time one has self seeded itself there .
  i looked up plants that have omgea tres when i saw a documentary about greece that said greek sheep and goats get the from mountain plants and found out about this one with its spainish name.
  it is jooel hollings worth who mentioned portolaca first on this blog.  i am gettign two sites mixed up i think, he wrote it on another blog.
  i think maches the salad vegtable plant said to have omega 3 might grow well easily i like it as salad so it woudl serve to purposes feed you and the hens. and they say it grows well in winter. called in univerasal tongue, latin "valerianella lacosta" .

thanks joel! that is exactly the kind of info  I look for. maybe I need to look into growing flax. I haven't been able to find flax products to feed my goats or chickens that aren't super hyped and with a price to match, generally directed towards the equine market. so far flax just goes directly into my diet in recipes.  I guess I marked it off my list because of that, but I have never really looked into the growing requirements....

Brenda Groth wrote:
nothing makes better pasteries

Are you saying that nothing makes better pastries than lard?  Lard is better than butter?

I saw a documentary saying that those who eat bird fat don't get colesterol. They found farmers from Alsace where they make fat livered geese for their special paté, paté de foi gras. That means that farmers who torture their geese, making their livers nearly explode, do better than us on the colesterol level and judaism is a good prevention from getting cholesterol, they use chicken fat to cook with don't they, other types of fat aren't kosher. 
      Here they cut all the fat off meat they sell you. Maybe an old fashioned habit, i read a bit of the bible that talked of how do a sacrifice and you burn the fat to make a pleasing smell to God and eat the meat, i thought you burnt the whole animal. You give one hind quarter to the preists. agri rose macaskie.

I'm interested in purchasing pork fat from an organic meat market in the village.  Does anyone have a recipe for rendering the fat?

Please and thank you.

Koka

paul wheaton wrote:
Acres USA sep 2009, page 33:  the article goes on to talk about a range of lards and how it is related to what the pigs eat. 

Also, as pigs are exposed to the sun, the Vitamin D content of their fat (which is technically not saturated - its monounsaturated) is the second - yes, second, highest source of Vitamin D.

Before Crisco, and shortening was introduced into the marketplace - there was house-rendered lard in every larder!

Rendering is simple -

Thanks Kristen, I'm glad it's simple, I believe it's chopped into pieces and boiled in water until the water is gone and the roasted, but I'm not at all sure about that.  Would you please provide me with your recipe?  Thanks.

Koka wrote:
Thanks Kristen, I'm glad it's simple, I believe it's chopped into pieces and boiled in water until the water is gone and the roasted, but I'm not at all sure about that.  Would you please provide me with your recipe?  Thanks.

It is as simple as just melting the fat down, slowly. In the past I have not used much if any water at all (maybe a Tbsp or two). The key is to not let it burn or get too brown. Last time I did it, it took a couple of days. I did it in the kitchen - somewhat smelly but not overwhelming. Would rather do it outside though in a large cast iron vat.

When it looks like all the fat that is going to liquidize has done so, there will still be some small solid pieces, strain those off and save (the cracklins - yum with salt!) And put the liquid in jars.

Thanks Kristin!  Your post brought back smells from my childhood when my mom used to "try out" beef suet or venison suet to use in making wild birdfood.  We didn't know about cracklins back in Maine, but since living in the south, I sure do and I will remember that.  I have the cast iron bot and a camp cookstove on the porch of my cabin in Colorado.  I'm good to go!!  I'll be sure and post the results.

Thank you!

Koka wrote:
I'm interested in purchasing pork fat from an organic meat market in the village.  Does anyone have a recipe for rendering the fat?

I just attending a Fat Rendering Workshop put on the a local Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter.  It was great!

You cut up the fat, the smaller the better.  Many butchers will grind it for you just for this purpose.

The quality of the animal is of utmost importance - as many chemicals/medications can be stored in the fat.  So natural grass fed/wild free-range  is the fat you want.

The key is to heat it slow, some will add a bit of rendered fat or water just to coat the bottom of the pan in the beginning, but you still need to watch the starting heat so the pieces do not brown to quickly. 

As the pieces warm they will release their fat and any moisture in the form of steam, this fat acts as a buffer between the fat and the bottom of the pan helping to prevent burning.  The temp can be turned up from low to med, and then med-high.  Stirring and watching are required.... unless you use your crockpot!  Yes, you can save your house the smell by rendering fat in your crockpot outside or in the garage very cool.

Crockpot Rendering:
Add the fat and set it on low - walk away.... come back after several hours (depending on the amount of fat and type) and check the progress.

Fat is 'done' rendering when the pieces are much darker, shriveled and harder - you can't miss this.  Cooking it to long will give you a strong dark lard that doesn't taste so good, so remove your liquid lard while it is clear, starting before your fat is completely spent.

To remove the lard - use a ladle and a good metal tea strainer placed into a wide mouth funnel.  Use a canning funnel like the Norpro Stainless Steel Wide-Mouth Funnel with a metal strainer like this Stainless Steel Tea Strainer set inside it to  ladle the hot liquid lard through and into your canning jar.

There is some thinking among the experienced ladies that cooling the lard fast will result in creamier smoother lard.  So you may want to sit your filled jars out in the garage to cool.

Yes - Paul, especially the lard, known as leaf lard, which is obtained from the "flare" visceral fat deposit surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin of pigs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard   Not all lard is equal, so check out this link for more information.l

One restaurant I worked in years ago used beef fat and trimmings to produce soup stock.  The stock was the objective, the lard was a discarded byproduct.

The trimmings arrived in 20-25 pound bags.  They went into a double jacketed steam kettle (a commercial scale double boiler), water was added to cover the trimmings.  This was allowed to stew for several hours at 200 degrees.  The liquid was drained into a bucket and placed in the fridge.  The solid remains were discarded.  The next day the bucket had a layer of fat several inches thick which was removed.  The liquid was strained and used in making soup.

My great-grandmother rendered lard in a similar fashion.  She preferred pork fat.  The pork fat was chopped up, placed in a double boiler.  She added some water but I can't say if she covered it, this was back in the 70s.  She left the pot on the cool side of the woodstove all night.  The next day the liquid was poured into a pot and put on the steps outside.  She did this in winter.  The whole thing froze solid.  It was brought inside, left on the counter to thaw and the water ice melt.  The lard on top was cut into a few pieces in order to remove it.  The bottom of the lard was covered in goo which was scraped off.  Most of it went into the fridge, some went into a coffee can on the stove to be used making dinner.  She lived to 98.

My great-grandmother rendered lard in a similar fashion.  She preferred pork fat.  The pork fat was chopped up, placed in a double boiler.  She added some water but I can't say if she covered it, this was back in the 70s.  She left the pot on the cool side of the woodstove all night.  The next day the liquid was poured into a pot and put on the steps outside.  She did this in winter.  The whole thing froze solid.  It was brought inside, left on the counter to thaw and the water ice melt.  The lard on top was cut into a few pieces in order to remove it.  The bottom of the lard was covered in goo which was scraped off.  Most of it went into the fridge, some went into a coffee can on the stove to be used making dinner.  She lived to 98.

Ken, I'm soooo excited to make our own grass fed pork lard and use it in EVERYTHING.  And reading this just makes me even more excited.  And kinda misty eyed with nostalgia even though I've never had a grandma with a woodstove.  I'm gonna be somebodies grandma with a woodstove here in about sixty years though. 

In Philadelphia you could sometimes buy lard fried potato chips, from the amish folks.  SO GOOD. 

That's a great method Ken.  At the workshop we talked about how we save drippings in the fridge and then use the lard scraped off the top of that (same idea on a much smaller scale).

Kristen, I am so excited about the vitamin D in pork fat/lard! So jazzed in fact, that I was telling some family members about it who aren't very interested in whole/sustainable foods. They looked at me like I was nuts to be excited about lard of all things. Thank you so much for sharing that and welcome to permies!

Jami, thank you for sharing such detailed instructions from your workshop! Those of us who grew up with Crisco would waste a lot of time (and maybe even ruin a lot of fat) without all those little tips. Ken's example makes it seem so doable, too.

A couple years back, my sister had an awful, awful bout with kidney stones, She found out afterwards that she was so deficient in vitamin D that her body couldn't absorb calcium...which is why it calcified in her kidneys. And my family still thought I was nuts for being excited about lard. I think they still buy that hogwash (oh, a pun!) that animal fats are bad for you. Sheesh!

I too am stoked about making my own lard.  As an aside, my grandparents smoked their own hams and bacons and Gram even made a delicious chocolate cake using bacon fat from their own pigs. (Naturally smoked)  It's a well known fact that fat is where the flavor is , and what carries it, I'll be making my as soon as this @!#$@% snowstorm clears out and I can get into the village!

The main problem I've come across this year of eating only my home produced food is that my fat intake has been almost totally from animals.  It's good to know that lard from free range animals is good for you.  Any info on suet from free range animals?  Add butter/cream to that and those are my three main fat sources. 

Oh gosh, woodswoman, animal fats are good for you, especially from free range or pastured critters! We are so conditioned to think it's bad, aren't we?

I'm listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food right now. He just went through a bunch of Weston A. Price's research and theories (I'm learning!) and has been talking about what makes good food and what doesn't.

In the book, Pollan is making the case that our Western diet, full of chemically raised, big agriculture foods, refined grains, too few foods, too much sugar and too little of the right kinds of fats makes people sick. When the heart association (and others) told Americans to eat more grain and less fat, especially to reduce saturated fat, Americans got fatter and sicker.  Additionally, the big four diseases increased: obesity, type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

Getting back to lard and fats. Pollan says that when we changed from mostly animal fats to primarily vegetable fats and hydrogenated fats (shortening and margarine), we shifted our ratio from being heavier on omega-3 fatty acids to more omega-6 fatty acids. In short, Pollan claims that the healthiest folks eat more omega-3s, which means butter, animal fats and leafy vegetables, and they eat LESS grains and LESS vegetable oils.

Interesting, eh? I'm having fun learning about it any way!

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:
... and leafy vegetables ...

Most of the nutrients in vegetables need the fat soluble vitamins in animal fats so the body can utilize them.

From westonaprice.org - "The crux of Dr. Price's research has to do with what he called the 'fat-soluble activators,' vitamins found in the fats and organ meats of grass-fed animals and in certain seafoods, such as fish eggs, shellfish, oily fish and fish liver oil. The three fat-soluble activators are vitamin A, vitamin D and a nutrient he referred to as Activator X, now considered to be vitamin K2, the animal form of vitamin K. In traditional diets, levels of these key nutrients were about ten times higher than levels in diets based on the foods of modern commerce, containing sugar, white flour and vegetable oil. Dr. Price referred to these vitamins as activators because they serve as the catalysts for mineral absorption. Without them, minerals cannot by used by the body, no matter how plentiful they may be in the diet."

Excellent clarification, Kristen!

I'm so excited about lard! I scared my kids talking about it, but that makes it more fun! 

Mmmm!  Cracklins Cornbread!
I remember butchering times, when I was little.  My grandparents would be up all night long, cutting and packaging up meat for the freezer.

Then for days, there would be pots on the stove cooking out the lard.
My grandmother insisted on Crisco for her biscuits, so she gave the lard away! 
But, she saved the cracklins, these were the beginnings of snacks, and often they were put into cornbread, much the way folks now days put jalapenos into cornbread.

Funny thing, even when kept in the freezer, butter, cracklins, and pecans etc.  will still go rancid.

I think the tendency to go rancid, reminds us to use the products while the vitamins are still strong and plentiful.

Excellent idea to put the cracklings in cornbread!  I tried some by themselves and it was a bit greasy for me.

Thanks for sharing what Grandma used to do!

Even the cornbread will be a bit greasy, but very tasty, just don't overdo how many you put in, and perhaps use no other oils in your cornbread?

I think the tendency to go rancid, reminds us to use the products while the vitamins are still strong and plentiful.

I fully agree with this.  Funny how the main selling point of refined white flour and refined oils in all their forms is that they have a very long shelf life.  But why would you want to eat something that never becomes inedible!? 

I don't want to raise pigs!  Been there, done that.  Goats with horns do alot less damage to fences, and are easier to keep confined.  By confined, I mean in their pasture and off the highway, and out of the garden!  Even little pot bellied pigs are escape artisits!

So, without raising pigs, how can we go about this?

I have venison in the freezer, free range dairy and boer goats, free range ducks, geese and chickens.  We hunt and fish alot.  We use deer or goat in place of beef in many recipes.

Does the research on pork fat also follow through for fat in other animals?

Wonder how it would translate to whole goat milk?  Goat milk has as much fat as cow's milk, depending on the breed mine are La Mancha's which aren't the heavy fat ones.
Kind of like different cows produce differing fats in their milk, so do goats.  Goat milk does not have much cream rise, but it is still in there.

Also, Omega 3 is in flax seeds, so we need to grow that to feed our livestock.  They suggest fish oil in your diet to help with that.  I use fish emulsion and fish meal on my seedlings, I wonder if that is picked up by plants and increases their omega 3?

I use Canola or Olive oil, to avoid hydrogenated oils, I was considering store bought lard, I have some on hand for soap making, but I checked a link here, and saw it is also hydrogenated, but also bleached, and descented?  Wow, alot done to it, probably not much nutrition left in it.

So, do we hit the butcher shops looking for fats?  Or do we make do with the available fats in other animals?  I have the land to raise pigs, just not the patience!

A few quick thoughts:

From listening to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, he claims that pasture-raised animals of any kind, that are rarely or never fed grain, have much higher omega-3s from the plants/grass than their grain-raised counterparts. The key is that the plant-based diet (NOT grain-based diets) for the animals and animal products we consume, makes those foods much better for us. Just as a primarily plant based diet (little or no grains, and not so much of the animal products) is also better for us directly.

Second, my Jewish friend tells me the Jews have historically rendered chicken fat to use in place of lard. I can imagine it would work well with other animals than pigs. A friend told me she was going to try rendering lard from her goat fat. I'm curious to hear how that turns out!

You can also check out the natural, non-hydrogenated shortening made from palm oil (there's links and info on that in another forum on here--no time to find it at the moment). It's excellent.

Another method for curing lard rather than rendering it.
www.academiabarilla.com/italian-culinary-traditions/meats-charcuterie/lardo-colonnata.aspx

It gets you to the site you'll have to use the search for colonnata or lardo.

Robert I didn't find how they turned pork fat into lard, but that site is awesome!  The recipes read like a wonderful book.  I will be trying some of them for sure.  Thanks for the URL.

I guess an herbed salt pork would be the closet way to describe it.  Infused with flavor sliced thinly and used in place of oil when sauteing.

the leaf fat  is also known as caul fat, it is a fatty lattice membrane found around the kidneys, it can also be used as a casing for free form sausages or used to wrap  things i used to do a dish with slice apple lardons of bacon, sage leaves and monkfish wrapped in caul and oven roasted, worked well  and looked awesome, the lattice mostly melts leaving a crispy mesh, it bastes as it melts keeping things moist.

I could not resist my 2 cents worth! My grandad lived to be 100 years old. He had lived with eating bacon and eggs every morning. One of his favorites was pouring warm lard, after butchering a hog on toast. He also said, the secret is eating stuff out of a garden, instead of a tin can from a store. With all of that fat you would think he would have had clogged arteries. Not so. When he would go to a Dr. cause of the aunts thinking he needed to, when the Drs thought he needed a prescription, he would say, "looks to me like you need that a hell of lot worse then I do"! This man resisted even taking an aspirin.

I am reminded about a report that said, 50% of people die from heart attacks with high cholesterol, and 50% die from heart attacks that are not considered high cholesterol. Makes you wonder.