Oils to Butter to Beef Tallow: Which fats are healthiest? - Ask a Nutritionist

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Transcript

Brandy: Welcome to “Ask a Nutritionist”. This is our weekly mini episode of Dishing Up Nutrition. My name is Brandy Buro. I'm a Licensed and Registered Dietitian at Nutritional Weight & Wellness. If you've been following the nutrition trends lately, you've probably heard people talking about beef tallow.

Maybe you've seen somebody frying potatoes in it, making homemade French fries, or maybe they're replacing their usual cooking oil with beef tallow. Beef tallow is not a new thing. It's been around for hundreds of years. In fact, it's a very traditional cooking oil. But it's sort of been pushed aside after decades of favoring the seed oils and vegetable oils.

But lately, animal-based fats like tallow, lard, and butter are all getting a little more attention, so there's more questions popping up. Mainly, is beef tallow really healthy? Is it better than vegetable oil? And how does it compare with other animal-based fats like butter, ghee, or even lard? And should beef tallow be something that's an everyday cooking oil?

What is beef tallow?

So today we're going to sort through all the hype and talk about where beef tallow can fit in a healthy real food diet. Let's get started with the basics. What is beef tallow? Well, beef tallow is rendered beef fat. Rendering simply means that we're slowly heating the fatty tissue so that the pure fat separates from the proteins, connective tissue, and the water in the beef tissue.

What's left is a fat that we strain off. Once it's cooled, it becomes quite firm at room temperature. Usually, tallow comes from something called suet, which is the really hard fat that surrounds kidneys and other vital organs of cows. Now historically, tallow was a very practical kitchen staple because it stored very well, and it works very well for roasting, frying, and sautéing, so different types of cooking methods that are higher heat.

Plus, it allows you to use a part of the cow that would otherwise maybe just be thrown out. So it kind of gets the best value out of that animal. Now, from a culinary standpoint, one of the biggest advantages of tallow is that it does withstand higher temperatures.

Its smoke point can range from 375 to about 420 degrees Fahrenheit. So it contains a relatively high proportion of saturated and monounsaturated fats and a smaller proportion of polyunsaturated fats when we compare it to vegetable oils and common seed oils.

This matters because these types of fat stay chemically very stable when we're applying higher heat, whereas polyunsaturated fats in vegetable oils break down very easily and oxidize very easily. And that matters because oxidized fats increase inflammation in the body, which puts us at risk of health issues, particularly heart health issues. So we want a stable fat so we prevent that oxidation

Is beef tallow healthy?

Now let's answer the question, is beef tallow healthy? Now, this is where there's a lot of nuance in the conversation, so let's break it down. Tallow is a minimally processed traditional fat. Nutritionally, its primary fatty acids include oleic acid, which is the monounsaturated fat that's also abundant in olive oil, but it also contains saturated fats such as stearic and palmitic acid.

Depending on the animal's diet, tallow can also include omega-3 fats, which I think many people recognize as heart-healthy, and that is absolutely true, especially if the animal ate more grass or was pasture-raised. But generally, like I mentioned, tallow contains smaller amounts of polyunsaturated fats, which means it is fairly resistant to oxidation when you're using it to cook, and that's one reason that it works so well at higher temperatures.

Now, that does not mean that tallow should automatically become the only fat that you use in the kitchen. Again, tallow is higher in saturated fat, and saturated fat can be part of a healthy, balanced diet, but that's when you are using it in moderation in combination with other types of fat, like the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats.

So I wouldn't frame this as there's one type of fat that's the best fat and the other types of fats are bad. We really do rely on a good balance of all of them for optimal health. Nutrition is rarely as simple as black and white, good and bad. So you'll often hear moderation in all things, which can be kind of annoying, but it's usually the best solution when we talk about nutrition.

So when we're talking about fat, polyunsaturated fats do have an important role in our health, and polyunsaturated fats are pretty easy to come by. There are lots of food sources of polyunsaturated fats, things like nuts and seeds, even fish.

But polyunsaturated fats are also very abundant in vegetable oils, processed foods, and deep-fried foods, which in a standard American diet, these are the types of foods that people tend to get a lot of, so they're getting a lot of polyunsaturated fats.

It's not a challenge to get polyunsaturated fats in your diet. The source matters quite a bit. The source of where that fat comes from and how that fat is processed matters. I encourage people to instead think about having a variety of natural fats, minimally processed fats in your diet.

So we're thinking olive oil, avocados, butter, nuts, coconut oil, even tallow can all have different nutrition benefits and different applications in the kitchen. Now remember, your overall dietary pattern matters a lot more versus whether you use butter or tallow to cook your vegetables.

What is the difference between beef tallow & lard?

Now let's answer the question, what is the difference between beef tallow and lard? Because there are a lot of similarities between these two fats. But the biggest difference is simply the animal from which they came. Tallow comes from cows, while lard comes from pork or pigs.

From a culinary standpoint, they're both traditional cooking fats. Both work particularly well when you're looking for crispness. So think roasted vegetables or roasted potatoes. Beef tallow tends to have a slightly beefy flavor, so keep that in mind if you are trying to decide which one to use. Lard on the other hand, is fairly neutral, so it could be a little more versatile.

From a nutritional standpoint, tallow and lard are somewhat different. Their fatty acid profiles and textures can be very different. Beef tallow tends to be firmer because it does contain a little more saturated fat, while lard is a little softer, because it contains a little more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

And again, the exact fatty acid profile can vary depending on that animal's diet and what part of the animal that fat came from. Pasture-raised cows that eat grass produce tallow that is much richer in heart-healthy omega-3 fats compared to cows that ate primarily corn.

I Think this is such an interesting topic, and there's some really great insight, that was in a recent “Ask a Nutritionist” episode, an interview that Leah did recently called Talking Beef with Matt Maier from Thousand Hills.

That aired August 24th of 2026. So if you want a deeper dive in the topic of beef and the nutritional aspects of grass-fed, pasture-raised beef compared to corn-fed beef, I highly recommend you check out that episode.

Is it healthier to fry foods in beef tallow vs. vegetable oil?

Now, let's answer another question that you may have seen pop up in the media. Is it healthier to fry foods in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil? I think this is probably one of the biggest reasons that tallow has become popular again. You'll sometimes hear that people are frying their French fries in beef tallow, and that's healthier than a French fry fried in vegetable oil.

You know, a French fry is still a deep-fried food at the end of the day, regardless of what fat you're using. But I would say that the type of oil does matter, especially when we're talking about commercial deep fryers, where they are using refined vegetable oils that have been kept hot for long periods of time and are reused over and over and over again.

Vegetable oils that are higher in polyunsaturated fats are generally more susceptible to oxidation when they are repeatedly exposed to high heat temperatures and when they're exposed to oxygen and light, all of which is true in a deep fryer in a fast food restaurant or any restaurant. Tallow, on the other hand, is a little more heat stable because it contains fewer polyunsaturated fats.

So from that perspective, the stability of these fats under various cooking applications, tallow can be a better frying fat. But I would not say that means eating fried foods is a healthy choice. If you're choosing between two orders of French fries, one that's fried in vegetable oil and one that's fried in tallow, I would say that the tallow fried option has a bit of an edge.

I just wouldn't use that as a justification to eat fried foods on the regular. It's still something that I would consider an occasional treat.

Choose a variety of fats & choose the right fat for the job at hand

So what is the healthiest fat to cook with? Rather than crowning any one cooking fat the clear winner, what I do is match the best fat for the job at hand. Each fat comes along with a unique nutrition profile, and they're each suited best for different culinary applications.

Let's take extra virgin olive oil. We hear how healthy olive oil is, and that is true. It's one of my favorite oils to use in the kitchen, but I only use it when I'm doing like a low heat cooking method. Mostly I'm using it for a no heat cooking method, so I'm using this to make salad dressings, hummus, various dips, even just drizzling it on some vegetables. Extra virgin olive oil is a very delicate oil, which oxidizes quickly when you apply heat, so it's not the best oil for every job.

Avocado oil, on the other hand, withstands higher temperature cooking. It also has a very neutral flavor, so this is my go-to when I'm doing a stir fry or maybe when I'm going to grill something.

Now, butter imparts a wonderful flavor. It works really well for low to medium heat cooking. This is my choice when I'm going to scramble some eggs in the morning. Ghee is clarified butter, meaning all the milk solids and water have been removed from butter, and that makes it a little more stable and a little more suitable for higher heat cooking.

Now let's return to tallow and lard. Again, they're great traditional options when you want a stable, sturdy cooking fat with a higher temperature cooking method. So this is going to be something that works well for roasting at higher temperatures above 375 degrees. So instead of asking what is the healthiest fat, think about including a variety of fats that come from quality sources. Choose the right fat for the job at hand.

Bottom line on beef tallow

So in wrapping up, what is the bottom line on beef tallow? Beef tallow is a traditional, minimally processed cooking fat that can absolutely have a place in a healthy real food diet. It's particularly useful for high heat cooking methods like roasting because it's relatively heat stable.

But that does not mean that you should replace all of your cooking fats with tallow. What I would rather see people do is shift away from ultra-processed foods and going out to eat towards cooking most of your food at home; use a variety of natural fats to do it. Again, we're matching the type of fat to the cooking method.

Delicate fats like extra virgin olive oil should be used for a salad dressing. Avocado oil, tallow, or coconut oil could be used to roast, sauté, maybe even grill. Use butter for low to medium heat cooking methods like cooking some eggs on the skillet, or maybe just top your broccoli with it. The goal isn't to find that one perfect fat to use on everything.

The conversation is a little more nuanced. The goal is to choose natural, high-quality fats as often as you can, use a variety, pair them with real foods, choose the right fat for the cooking that you're doing. That is a much more sustainable method, and I think it's a much more delicious way to eat.

Well, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of “Ask a Nutritionist”. If you found this episode helpful, the best way that you can support us is share it with somebody that you think would be interested in this topic and that you think could benefit from it. Well, that's it for today. I'll talk to you all next time.