Featured FDA orders food manufacturers to stop using trans fat within three years

"...Artificial trans fat will have to disappear from the American diet, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA on Tuesday ruled that trans fat is not "generally recognized as safe" for human food...."
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/16/health/fda-trans-fat/

Goodbye Crisco, welcome back LARD!

Lard the new health food

 

Lol, I've been rendering my own lard (and some tallow) for years. IT'S DELICIOUS!!!

 

FYI, though I know you're joking around, nothing beats lard for frying chicken or fish or squirrel or frog legs or rabbit or eggs or anything else. Lard is top of the line for frying or baking, google the chefs on it.

The problem is store bought lard at this time IS partially hydrogenated; you have to render your own to have 'good' lard. But that's going to change. The only reason they've been partially hydrogenating it is to improve shelf stability.

 

This is an informative article on the whole history of trans fats. I was surprised to learn that the food industry in general has anticipated the ban and has already to a large degree eliminated trans fats and which foods it is that contain those lingering trans fats:

Why some doctors used to tout trans fats

"....research emerged, linking trans fats to tens of thousands of deaths from heart disease. Shifting public opinion and new laws requiring that trans fats be labeled, first on packages and then in some restaurants, forced food companies to move away from trans fats by the late 2000s. Even Crisco eliminated nearly all the trans fats in its recipe in 2007. In the past decade, Americans have cut their trans fat consumption by 85 percent, CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson told the Washington Post Tuesday. The remaining 15 percent are mostly in processed foods — canned frosting, frozen biscuits and microwave popcorn, among others.

Eliminating those lingering trans fats “is probably the single most important change in our food supply, if not in decades, then ever,” Jacobson told the Post. “This action alone will save many thousands of lives each year.”..."

 

It just so happens that today I am rendering (which I normally do during the winter months) because of the need to free up freezer space for the garden stuff that's coming on.

A local butcher shop sells the pork suet @ .39 a lb.



For this rendering I'll be adding in with the suet 3 lbs bacon scraps and 4 lbs country ham scraps, render it overnight, and can it all together in the morning, lard and cracklings, which makes a fantastic seasoning 'confit' with a myriad of uses. The crock holds 12 lbs total.

 

Would you explain your reasoning here? I ask this because if I'm understanding this correctly the food industry is already 85% in compliance of their own accord and what remains is basically over processed 'junk food'.

 

If it's rendered and canned correctly it will keep for decades.

 

I've won several people over by just giving my confit away. I keep Dad and our daughters supplied with it and with lard; they use it all the time now.

Well, the government HAS made some good calls in the past, you know.

 

OK, for instance would you consider government action to eliminate smallpox or polio an encroachment? To me, this ban amounts to government action to fight heart disease.