Health

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/12/beef-tallow-kennedy-cooking-fat-seed-oil/680848/

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest spin on MAGA, “Make frying oil tallow again,” is surprisingly straightforward for a man who has spent decades downplaying his most controversial opinions. Last month, Kennedy argued in an Instagram post that Americans were healthier when restaurants such as McDonald’s cooked fries in beef tallow—that is, cow fat—instead of seed oils, a catchall term for common vegetable-derived oils including corn, canola, and sunflower. Americans, he wrote, are “being unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils; in his view, we’d all be better off cooking with solid fats such as tallow, butter, and lard. In a video that Kennedy posted on Thanksgiving, he deep-fries a whole turkey in beef tallow and says, “This is how we cook the MAHA way.”

Cardiologists shuddered at the thought. Conventional medical guidance has long recommended the reverse: less solid fat, more plant oils. But in recent years, a fringe theory has gained prominence for arguing that seed oils are toxic, put into food by a nefarious elite—including Big Pharma, the FDA, and food manufacturers—to keep Americans unhealthy and dependent. Most nutrition scientists squarely dismiss this idea as a conspiracy theory. But the movement probes some unresolved, fundamental questions about nutrition. Are saturated fatty acids—the kind in animal fat—actually dangerous? And are polyunsaturated ones—found in plant-derived oils—really all that great for your heart? The fact that these debates remain unsettled does not validate Kennedy’s view on fats, which represents a complete reversal of conventional health beliefs. But it does leave plenty of room for his philosophy to proliferate."...(more)