Why beef tallow returned to the fast-food fryer

HostThere's a specific kind of magic in a perfect french fry. You know the one. It's hot, crisp on the outside, but almost like mashed potatoes on the inside. For a long time, people have said that fries just don't taste the way they did when we were kids, and it turns out they're right. There's a big move happening right now where some of the biggest food spots are ditching clear vegetable oils and going back to cooking in beef fat, or tallow. It feels like a massive shift in how we think about what's good for us and what tastes good. Why are we suddenly seeing this old school way of cooking making such a huge comeback after being gone for decades?

GuestIt really comes down to a mix of nostalgia, new health trends, and a bit of a war against what people call seed oils. If you go back to the nineteen eighties, almost every big burger chain used beef tallow. It was the gold standard. It gives food this rich, savory depth that you just can't get from a bottle of soybean or canola oil. But then, in nineteen ninety, everything changed. There was this huge public campaign by a wealthy guy named Phil Sokolof. He had a heart attack at a young age and blamed saturated fat, specifically the beef fat in fast food. He took out full page ads in major newspapers calling out big chains for poisoning people. It scared the companies so much that they switched to vegetable oil almost overnight. McDonald’s changed their recipe in nineteen ninety, and for a lot of people, the fries were never the same.

HostI remember people talking about that, but is it really just about the taste? I mean, surely there was a real health reason to move away from animal fat back then. It feels a bit fast to just say it was all one guy with a newspaper ad.

GuestWell, the science back then was very focused on one thing, and that was cholesterol. The thought was that animal fat raises your cholesterol, which leads to heart trouble. So, the industry moved toward vegetable oils because they were seen as heart healthy. But here is the twist. To make those vegetable oils work for deep frying, they had to be processed in a way that created trans fats. Years later, we found out that trans fats were actually much worse for your heart than the beef fat they replaced. Now, we're in this weird moment where the tide is turning again. People are starting to worry more about how heavily processed our food is. They look at a vat of soybean oil and see a factory product, but they look at tallow and see something simple and natural that humans have been eating for thousands of years.

HostHold on though, because beef fat is still full of saturated fat. If I go and eat a pile of fries cooked in tallow every day, my doctor is still going to have a talk with me about my heart. Are we just trading one problem for another because it sounds better on social media?

GuestThat's the big debate right now. You're right that it's still heavy stuff. But the argument from the people who want tallow back is about how the oil holds up under heat. When you heat up vegetable oils over and over in a big fryer, they can break down into some pretty nasty chemicals. They get unstable. Beef fat is much more sturdy. It has a high smoke point, which means it doesn't burn or turn into those weird compounds as easily. On top of that, there's a huge movement online right now against seed oils like corn, soy, and sunflower oil. A lot of people believe these oils cause swelling and other issues in the body. Whether that's fully proven or not, it has created a massive demand for animal fats again.

HostSo, who's actually doing this? I know I have seen some chicken places and wing spots making a big deal out of it lately.

GuestYou see it most with places like Buffalo Wild Wings. They have stuck with beef shortening for a long time, and now they're using it as a selling point. Popeyes is another big one. They use a blend that includes beef fat, which is why their fried chicken has that specific crunch and flavor. Even some newer, trendy burger spots are making tallow fries their whole brand. They know that people will pay a bit more for that old fashioned taste. But for the really giant chains, the ones with thousands of locations, it's a much harder move to make.

HostIf the taste is better and people want it, why wouldn't a place like McDonald's just flip the switch back? It seems like it would be a huge win for them.

GuestIt's a total nightmare for their supply chain. Think about how much oil a global chain uses every single day. There's a huge industry set up to grow soy and corn and turn them into oil. We have mastered that. But getting enough high quality beef fat to supply tens of thousands of restaurants is a different story. It's more expensive to buy, it's harder to move around, and you have to worry about it going bad faster than a shelf stable jug of vegetable oil. Plus, there's the footprint of it all. Growing crops for oil takes a lot of land, but raising cattle for fat has its own huge impact on the planet. Most of these big companies have made promises to be more green, and moving back to beef products on that scale would look like a step backward to a lot of people.

HostIt's wild that something as simple as what we fry a potato in can tell such a big story about our history and our fears about health.

GuestThe big question now is whether there are even enough cows in the world to keep up if every big chain decides to switch back to the old way.

HostThat white paper bag on the car seat might start smelling a lot more like a steakhouse than a chemistry set as we head back to the way things used to be.