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frying with Lard? healthy?


little ms foodie

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Hydrogenated ANYTHING is really bad for you.  The health risks have prompted Denmark to ban all products containing it.  The US government recently began requiring food products to be labeled for trans-fats.  You would be amazed how many products use it.  I've become a food label detective lately!

The new products containing fully hydrogenated oils, such the new Crisco mentioned above, do not contain trans-fats. The enemy is not hydrogenation per se (which merely thickens and prevents oxidation -- good things in many circumstances), the enemy is trans-fatty acids, which are created by the process of partial hydrogenation (well, they are also present in dairy products, like butter, where they come from microbial hydrogenation, but the quantities are trivial).

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced" - Vincent Van Gogh
 

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Last year I ordered 5 lbs. of leaf lard from Dietrich's in Pennsylvania. I've been keeping it frozen. I primarily use it to make piecrust but decided to fry chicken with it. I just melted some in a large skillet until it was about 2" deep.

I don't know how healthy it was to do so, but that was the most delicious chicken I'd ever fried. I didn't tell my husband what i'd done but when he tasted it he exclaimed, "Oh my God. This chicken is delicious! What did you do differently?"

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I've just started using lard after finding a local supplier. Though it can of course work wonders with baked goods and fried chicken, try it with pork chops--it makes some of the best pork ever. I use a cast iron pan (I'm sure stainless would work fine though) and pan roast it first over medium high heat for several minutes then a couple of minutes in the oven to finish it off. The exterior is a beautiful mahogany color and the flavor is incomparably roasty and rich.

josh

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Last year I ordered 5 lbs. of leaf lard from Dietrich's in Pennsylvania.  I've been keeping it frozen.  I primarily use it to make piecrust but decided to fry chicken with it.  I just melted some in a large skillet until it was about 2" deep. 

I don't know how healthy it was to do so, but that was the most delicious chicken I'd ever fried.  I didn't tell my husband what i'd done but when he tasted it he exclaimed, "Oh my God.  This chicken is delicious!  What did you do differently?"

My grandmother did that all her life and she lived to be 90. She had VAST quantities of lard on hand for baking and cooking.

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Sometimes it is simply enough that it tastes good and damm the health police.

Occasional use is not going to harm anyone.

I explain to people that they have to consider the percentage of lard used in pie crust and how much total pie crust they might consume in a year and it is not worth worrying about.

And how often are you going to prepare fried chicken - once a week, twice a month? Unless you are using it in large amounts, every day, it's not that much.

I think people do more damage by worrying about such things (causing stress) than the products themselves cause.

Then, of course, there is the genetic thing. I have low cholesterol in spite of eating a diet high in foods that are supposedly "bad."

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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I use lard quite frequently for cooking - simply because I bought a 10 lb tub of it to do confit with, and had a lot left over! I love it. I find I don't need much because the flavor it adds is so rich.

As for pie crust - I personally prefer a half-lard/half-butter crust - lard for flakiness, butter for flavor! Yum.

...wine can of their wits the wise beguile, make the sage frolic, and the serious smile. --Alexander Pope

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You want a good laugh- one of the vintage cooking books I picked up at the university surplus store last week was a 1921 "Balanced Daily Diet" put out by Criso, bestowing its many virtues over any other fats, especially 'crude' animal fats. The first part of the book tells you why Crisco is so good for you and then the second part has Crisco in every type of recipe you can think of. One had you fry bacon in Crisco and they even used Crisco in the potato salad dressing- ICK! :shock:

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