Grass-Fed Livestock & Essential, Healthy Fats
Excerpts from a series by William Winter, DVM, published in Stockman-GrassFarmer '09
Context: You
may not know that few foods are as healthy as Saturated Fats like beef
tallow and pork lard. Read on to learn why lard is comparable to
breast milk as a super-food! Confusing
and incorrect information* has been foisted on people concerning health
and dietary fats, particularly animal fats from Locally Pastured
livestock.
Before 1910 lard was used widely as a cooking shortening. We sell Leaf Lard to a few delighted bakers and recently displayed it fresh in the OFM booth, drawing many comments. Farmer Todd has personally rendered Leaf Lard, through a simple low heating process and recommends it to all. We present this series to encourage others.
"The diet and lifestyle of the hog radically affects the quality of the lard! Confinement pork lard has similar omega 6:3 ratios to feedlot beef, a 100 gm serving has about 8 grams of omega-6 and 0.8 grams of omega-3....At the other end of the spectrum free-living warthogs have a ratio approaching 1:1! The health of Americans plummeted when the "politically correct" diet advice recommended vegetable oils for cooking, especially partially-hydrogenated oils.
We need saturated fat (SF). It makes up over half of all cell membranes and gives cells stiffness and integrity. Bones require about 50% of the dietary fat to be saturated so calcium can be absorbed. SF lowers an inflamatory marker directly associated with risk of heart disease, Lipoprotein-a. SF protects the liver from alcohol, toxins, and drugs, and enhances the immune system. Many saturated fats have anti-microbial properties and protect us from harmful pathogens in the intestine...."
*There is no scientific evidence to back up claims that saturated fat causes "artery clogging." In fact, arterial plaque is only 26% SF, the rest unsaturated fat and over half the plaque is polyunsaturated fat!
