Comment by yankee_dodge

3 hours ago

The scariest part of this well-reasoned piece is the amount of trans fat in beef tallow. Trans fat is unbelievably destructive. A review in the New England Journal of Medicine 20 years ago [0] sent that message well. I doubt there has been any significant revision to the understanding of the physiology.

[0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra054035

> the amount of trans fat in beef tallow

Natural tallow doesn’t contain a lot of trans fat. The only way to consume trans fats in large quantities is through hydrogenated fats.

  • True -- trans fat is 5-10% of beef fat [1] BUT "a lot" is not the standard when it comes to trans fat. The NEJM article makes the point that trans fat is damaging even in small quantities, like a single gram. It was a great day when trans fat was required to be listed on the Nutrition Facts Label. It spurred snack manufacturers to get it (mostly) out of their products.

    [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6356151/