Going dairy free and looking for good animal fats

#1

Hi everyone, I’ve decided to go entirely dairy free to see if it will help with my roseaca, that would make my WOE carnivore, consisting of beef and lamb, fish (once a week), eggs, water, fat and salt. I have been carnivore for several months now and experienced many health benefits, but the situation with my skin has not improved in all this time. So I am giving up all dairy from here on, including my beloved grassfed butter. I will be paying the grassfed and pastured butcher in my vicinity another visit next week, and will be looking for animal fats to cook with, in place of the butter. I noticed they had a jar of goose fat. Can you fry beef and lamb in goose fat? I’m sure they have some other fats as well.

Which animal fats do you prefer to cook with?

(Bob M) #2

I use tallow from beef, pork fat from good pork, and duck fat if I have it.

Personally, if the fat is at room temp and has a lot of liquid, I wouldn’t use it.

#3

Hi Bob, the butcher has grassfed beef, lamb, bison and water buffalo, also does game, pastured/free range pork and poultry, chicken and goose, but I was a bit concerned about the PUFAs regarding pig fat. I will enquire about beef tallow, as I mainly eat beef anyway. Do you keep your animal fats in the fridge then? How long would you say they last?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

Butter/ghee, bacon grease, lard, and tallow.

(Bob M) #5

You know, I usually do keep them in the fridge or frozen, but I think if it’s 100% fat, it should last outside there.

Yeah, if it’s pig fat, you want to get good pigs that are not fed corn. That’s the kind of pig fat I have now.

Birds are also what they eat, so birds eating corn might not be great. Some of the schmaltz (chicken fat) I’ve seen is really liquid at room temp.

If you get suet, you can easily make tallow using a food processor to grind it into bits, and then putting it in a slow cooker to render the fat, then draining it. Suet (for beef, anyway), is one of the few animal products that aren’t dairy that are > 50% saturated fat (in terms of fat content).

#6

Yeah, that’s the thing. Just because pigs or chickens are free range, they can still be fed corn and seed oils. When I visit the butcher I can see their cows happily munching grass in the farm butcher’s fields. Which is very reassuring. That’s their own 100% grassfed, free range herd. But the free range pigs and poultry are from other local farms they trust. I suppose I could ask the butcher what feed they’ve been given. But anyway, my body seems to only want beef and lamb at the moment. Though I will try the butcher’s venison meat, out of sheer curiosity. But what I’ve come to realise is that grassfed cuts of beef and lamb are leaner, and I need to add more fats, as there’s not enough fat in my carnivore WOE currently. I have begun eating organ meats which are deeply nutritious, all I have to do is add some good animal cooking fats since dairy is a no go for me.

As to the suet, I don’t have a food processor and I’m just lousy in the kitchen. I cook very basic meals. But beef dripping or tallow I will definitely look for, I imagine it would work well with both beef and lamb.

#7

I cook brisket slow in water. The stuff in the bottom of the pan tastes nice. If you do that you could use that. Bit lumpy but I bet it’s full of very good oils.

If you roast you could put it in the fridge and use that

#8

Hi Mr_Red_Fox, how long would the fat from brisket last in the fridge? Wouldn’t I be able to use the fat from any cut of beef/ox/veal or lamb if I slow roasted it in the oven? What would you say are the most affordable cuts of those animals? I currently buy minced muscle meats and organ meats from my grassfed butcher, as the former are more affordable, I use the mince to make my own patties/burgers, and the latter are both affordable and wonderfully nutritious.

#9

Why not?
I have no experience with that though, I fry things in lard, almost always :slight_smile: That’s my fav. I never buy it anymore (I used to, the nearby pig farm has it. supermarket lard is bad, I knew that since long as lard and butter and onion is a very common hiking food and appeared in organized hiking tours), I buy fatty pork and it gets rendered out when I fry it :wink:
I don’t remember eating goose fat but good duck fat is wonderful. Not like good lard isn’t that, it totally is :slight_smile:
The only animal fat I absolutely hate and never would use is tallow.
And what I actually have is lard and very rarely a little chicken fat. Sometimes duck fat, I get it from my SO’s Mom but one can buy it too, just like goose fat. But I am really happy with my lard.

#10

Hi Shinita, the butcher does sell free range pork and poultry. But from other farms that they trust. I would have to inquire about those animals’ feed before I took my chance on lard, as I am concerned about PUFAs halting my progress (in healing my gut, nothing to do with weight) and there being seed oils, grains and soy in the feed of the pigs and chickens that I then would assimilate into my body. Why do you hate tallow? Is it the taste? Texture? I’ve never tried it so I’m curious. Duck fat, the butcher may have that, but can it be used to fry other animals as well or just poultry? I’d also like to try duck eggs, but that’s by the by. Never tried any animal fats, so I’m curious about them all.

#11

Hi Never,

The brisket fat will last about 5 days. I haven’t tried it though I will. The problem will be making it thick enough for frying as when i roasting I put a cup of water in the pan with it do it comes out pretty liquid. I’ll try this afternoon.

I haven’t tried roasting anything lamb or anything but I think you’re right the principle should work.

I’ve looked around and Brisket is the cheapest cut I could find. After that it’s Rob of beef and Topside. I do need to put time into looking into how to cook other cheaper cuts though like shin of beef, skirt, feather steak, tongue, flank.

I have tried Rib but even slow roasted It’s tougher than brisket. Topside was neither fatty or lean enough so although nearly as cheap as brisket I would be reluctant to try again. I did like heart - a bit like steak and I will try it again (the butcher cleaned it up and cut).

I’d recommend asking your butcher too although mine are keen to make their money.

My friend says he gets extra when he pays cash so that’s an option too.

Good luck.

#12

Yes, that. Many people love it so it’s odd I can’t eat it :slight_smile: I eat the meat, that’s fine, even tasty, I feel the same flavor but in tiny amounts, accompanying its meat, it works there really well. But separately (or in too high fat/meat ratio), not for me. I am very serious about eating everything I can, I use even the hard pork skin of my smoked pork sometimes (I boil it in a soup and it gets soft and then I can ground it and mix it with other things, I love the taste, I just can’t chew it without this process)… So if I feed the tallow to animals, it shows I really hate the taste.

You asked people about shelf life of animal fat. In the beginning I bought lard in big (for me) containers. That lasted for very long in the fridge, no problem. I used it up in several weeks at least. It didn’t go bad.

Now I have fat from frying pans (the most common and the biggest amount. it lasts long, well as long as I use up the 60-100g lard I get, it’s only a few weeks due my frequent liver eating), oven pans (roasts. it’s “contanimated”, mixed with jelly and meat morsels but I use it up quickly) and the top of cold, jellied soups (I don’t store that for long either) :slight_smile:

#13

Ooh I forgot I did get a block of fat from the butcher for free too so it might be worth asking. I wasn’t that keen on it but I’d try again.

And another thing I do is carve the brisket after it’s fully cooled and been chilled in the Fridge so it’s firm enough to slice Uber thin.

(Rossi Luo) #14

I prefer lard. It smells really good, and easy to get.

#15

Wow. I heard about such things before. Not here, fat is precious and expensive, often more expensive than meat. It depends. Fancy pork fat tissue, smoked is expensive. Some basic fresh one is cheap (about the price of chicken thigh on sale). I suppose the awful white supermarket lard that contains things nothing to do with lard, is cheaper? But I don’t even look at it ever. I visited the nearby pig farm shop again, after a long time, meanwhile there was extreme inflation (some staple food items cost 2.5 times more now, it’s rare, it’s usually 2 times as much only or less)… The lovely lard there was pretty cheap, coconut oil price. It more than doubled, no way I will buy it, I can make my own anyway. It was the most expensive item in the shop and they had some aged ham (I bought some cheap smoked ribs and it’s amazing, nothing like smoked pork from the supermarket).
Even butter is cheaper than that lard now and butter was always expensive and then it doubled its price (but then it lowered. apparently dairy prices got too high without a reason. never ever saw prices going down without them being a new exotic item. lots of fancy paleo items got cheaper, like coconut oil).

(KM) #16

I do realize that ghee is made from butter, but the clarified part that’s left is pure fat, no milk solids. That might be a technicality, but currently I’m loving my ghee as an easy cooking fat. And I’ll admit it, I’m not a purist. If I’ve cooked in fat I’ll usually just strain it and pour it in a jar, so on occasion the fat I cook with is a beef-bacon-sausage-chicken-ghee mixture. The jar goes in the fridge because even with straining it’s likely to have left over bits in it that could go bad, but my mother used to keep her grease jar out on the counter. Maybe why I have the constitution of a hyena! :laughing:

(Rossi Luo) #17

Lard is very cheap here now, because people believe saturated fat is bad, so no one likes lard anymore, but to me, it’s the best food:grinning:
By following keto, I didn’t infect covid 19 virus and flu virus while my families all infected, I love it.

#18

No one ever could talk people out of eating lard and very fatty pork here… They are trying, well it’s not against lard, it’s against all fats in more than tiny amounts, at least I remember such things in papers… Until I didn’t look up supermarket papers to check out the sales before my monthly big shopping trip, I barely heard about dietary advice. Once in a blue moon in the radio.
So, advice says very little fat. People resist. I am rooting for them though high-fat isn’t a good combo with a ton of carbs. People overeat and it shows. Still, too many people going low-fat and that little is mostly from sunflower oil (it still rules as number one cooking oil, very overwhelmingly) and margarine (IDK what the official dietary guide says but butter is expensive and oddly, it matters even for people with decent salaries), that wouldn’t sit well with me. It probably would mess with their meat intake too and I need the current huge interest in pork to get my own cheap enough :slight_smile:

#19

Hi Shinita, I know how important it is to get enough animal fats, it is vital, and when I made the switch to 100% grassfed I encountered the problem of not getting enough fats. This is not because I don’t like fatty meat, but I buy the meats from the butcher I can afford and that will last me through the week. So my solution is, since those meats I get now are much too lean, to get some dripping to boost fat intake. Quitting dairy has significantly reduced my fat intake, and that is not ideal, so I am looking into ways to up the fat again. I noticed the butcher sells free range pork belly, I might try that, and see if it tastes different to me than the supermarket pork belly. They also had some bacon. And free range chicken and other poultry. In time I will probably try this. But for now it’s beef, lamb, and organ meats my body seems to want, I understand organ meats are not fatty, but deeply nutritious. If I wanted more fat I’d have to eat the brain. I might, if they sell that. I am looking into various ways of upping my saturated fats. As to lard, I’ll ask the butcher when next I go what those free range pigs are fed.

#20

It’s good if added fat (even just fat tissue and not rendered fat) works for you, it doesn’t for me. Sure, I could add a bit but somehow the fat in my protein sources works best, satiates me best, tastes best :smiley: It’s nice when things align this well for me :slight_smile:

I had pork for lunch (among others), fresh ham, it’s the leanest cut I can ever eat (and it’s not just the fat content, this cut is so lovely and juicy, very different from pork loin that I just can’t enjoy, not even when I cut off a little slice with a significant amount from the fat layer)… But I am me so I ate the whole fat layer (this slab had a decent amount) and some meat… But I can finish the leaner inner part too, just not all alone. I go for as lean as possible (it’s still not very lean as I LOVE fat) as I too easily overeat it but with this item I can overdo it now and then I overeat protein. (Overeating) fat and protein is my Scylla and Charybdis :smiley: Except I can do both at the same time very easily, that’s my default.

Most organ meats are somewhat lean but they need a lot of fat to fry due to it and it balances out things a little. How do you eat your organs? Do you have ideas for the future? I keep neglecting my research for new recipes, I always just fry liver and cook tongue in spicy water for 1.5 hours… But liver gets boring that way. At least the chicken one. Pork is lovely but I don’t make it so often either as it’s a tad harder to get.