Food Rendering your own fat?

I called down to Whole Foods Tuesday and had the butcher save me the days supply of grassfed fat trimmings. I wound up with about 13 pounds of fat. 2 days of rendering in the crockpot later and I have 4 jars of beautiful tallow to cook with. Has anyone else done this? Part of the benefit is that I can't afford grassfed beef to get the good Omega-3/6 ratio as opposed to grainfed, but I can add this to lean meat and get similar benefits. It was also fun and a good learning experience for the kids.

 

Wow, when I saw the post title I didn't know what to think.

But to answer your question, no. Grew up. On a farm and we butchered our own livestock but never kept the fat for cooking purposes. Always bought lard. Back in the good old days when about every dish was full of trans fat.

 

Lard and Tallow contain minute amounts of Trans fats only, like 1-2%. Trans fats are all the oil rich crappy fats like veggie and soybean oil. I'm staying away from all that for the Omega levels I've started paying attention to.

 

and here i thought this thread was going to be about making soap out of people..

I used to do this tons of times when i lived with my mom. it wasn't necessarily something i thought of as necessary at the time, it was just naturally what you did after cooking with animal fat: you scrape off the top and use it later.

 

My wife wants to make soap too, so that may happen soon as well. She is pretty crafty, so any possibility of learning or making something new gets her excited.

 

My first thought was 'How in the hell is he harvesting his own fat?" Checked to see if username was Tyler Durden, then opened the thread.

So, how do you store it and for how long?

..

 

I put it in cleaned pickle jars, which will reseal from the cooling action of the tallow. Supposedly you can keep them in a cool dark place, like a pantry indefinitely. I'm storing them in the fridge/freezer though. I don't want to run into any issues. The oddest part of the whole process was rendering it. It had an odd smell. Strangely it wasn't from the fat itself, but the connective tissue that got skimmed out. It wasn't a bad smell, but it was distinctive.

 

I do this with all the bacon I cook. About a half of teaspoon in a cup of coffee is awesome...

 

By the way, natural trans-fats are good for you. It's artificial trans-fats (ie hydrogenated fats) that are bad for you.

 

i keep my bacon fat, too...never heard of putting it in coffee.

 

Add me to the group who thought this might have been a new weight loss fad

My mother... and her mother before her... saved every drop of bacon grease for use in cooking. Best grease for cooking eggs and stuff ever. I never considered what the OP suggests. Sounds interesting.

 

I save all the bacon grease too. Its amazing, planning on tossing a bunch of quartered brussel sprouts in bacon fat with some onions for breakfast this morning. Going to cook up some eggs when that is done and call it a meal.

 

i may have to give this a try!

 

im going to be ignorant for a minute. i really dont understand the point of keeping it. please enlighten me.

 

I got the beef fat for free from Whole Foods. Its what they trim off of the grassfed organic kidneys before they sell them. It is what traditionally would be called Suet. As for the point of keeping it, its much better to cook in rather than a vegetable or seed based oil based on the omega 3/6 ratios. We get way too high of an omega 6 balance from eating grain fed meets and grain based oils. Omega 6 is an inflammatory, which we need for the immune system, however we need it in a pretty close ratio to Omega 3 which is an anti inflammatory. The ratio of omega 3 to 6 is much better in grass fed meats, and omega 3s can also be found in seafood, and some eggs.

 

I keep my bacon fat, of course. If you cook duck the fat is delicious to use for cooking other things.

 

After read post i also do that. It is quit good and benefits for healthy body. I use it in breakfast and dinner also. My fitness trainer told me that if it used daily in foods then it is helpful in burning extra fat and building strong muscles. The ration of 4 to 6 omega is good in grass meats. It is also found in sea foods and natural way.

 

The first rule of fat club, is don't talk about fat club...