Where do you get duck fat and leaf lard?

Diane, may I share your chart?

Love it! I use all except duck fat. I just haven’t gotten my hands on any. The more I study health, the more I realize the importance of animal fats in our diet. Coconut oil is wonderful and all, but we really need animal fat. Leaf lard from a pastured pig will have close to 1,000 IU of vit D. Ghee made from grass fed cows cream is rich in many nutrients but is especially wonderful because its a great source of K2.

My number one fat is tallow. By preference I use the fat skimmed from my weekly beef stock, which is very flavorful and excellent if you want a beef flavor (which I usually do). But I often run out and am forced to render fat directly. For this I often use CAFO beef trimmings which I get very cheaply from the butcher. I’ve taken to rendering it in large quantities of water which keeps it very fresh and pure, and also provides some additional broth. That’s what we use for french fries in our house, though we use ghee or lard when it runs out.

Duck fat is a little harder to come by, and my stomach doesn’t tolerate it as well as tallow. I’m planning to get some lard and make duck confit with it soon, so after that I’ll have a mixture of lard and duck fat…

I should have mentioned more of the things I use the fats for:

Ghee: frying eggs and caramelizing Brussels sprouts

Tallow: Browning meat and caramelizing root vegetables (carrots, parsnips, turnips and radishes… also cranberries!)

Chris,

I agree on the potatoes in duck fat. I made this recently and it blew me away. Its like cheating.

Where can I buy duck fat? If I need to get it from the butcher and render it myself, which cut do I ask the butcher for? I recently rendered lard from Leaf Lard from the butcher and it was totally easy. The few friends I’ve spoken to about it were shocked, saying it’s unhealthy, so I am glad to read your blogs and info and have enough common sense to know better. It’s fun to learn tasty ways of healthier eating which contrast with the SAD (Standard American Diet) way most people eat (and become obese).

It looks like the decimal point is off on the duck fat PUFA number, it should be more like 1.6g/T of PUFA, etc.

Good post, thanks

As it happens, french-fries have nothing to do with France, They are named for the way the potato is cut – or ‘Frenched’.

And in the UK French-Fries (Or chips as we know them) were originally cooked in ‘dripping’ (Beef fat) before the misinformed and misguided, backed by the Animal Rights Movement, spread the ‘gospel’ about seed oils.

I love the taste of Duck, so I should like my chips fried in Duck fat. I wonder if like beef fat, it leaves a lovely coating of fat on the palate.

And at last I found a place where few will laugh at me because I counsel the hunter-gatherer ideas. They might not have lived as long as us, but they were healthy. I should imagine they died from far more accidental means than we do, or they couldn’t escape a predator. Maybe our predators are the motor-car and lunatic drivers.

JW

I’ve never really liked the taste of vegetables until I started to cook them in a mixture of tallow, lard and butter.

I only cook this way because of the extra bioavailability of vegetable nutrients when they are cooked in fat http://healthydietsandscience.blogspot.com/2011/02/higher-nutrient-bioavailability-with.html

As well as the health benefits of cooking vegetables with fat they now also taste delicious.

Would be interested in your thoughts on this study show linoleic acid not associated with increase AA production.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/8/1/36/abstract

Chris,

I run a wellness program for a local fire department. Do you have any recommendations on adding specific blood tests to our lab work to give a better idea of general wellness. We do a standard panel (lipid, CBC, Heavy Metal, etc). I assume you would add 25 Hydroxy-Vitamen D & CRP…any others?

Thanks!

Good article! The fat in butter doesn’t have a low smoke point though (just as ghee doesn’t); butter contains milk proteins which is what browns/burns if you’re not careful. The proteins are also what give butter a superior browning ability as the proteins aid in Maillard Reaction.

My favorite fat for all-purpose cooking would be bacon drippings. Especially when it has little specks of bacon in it. Mmmmmmm. I use it exclusively for eggs, onions, and greens. I haven’t ever tried (or seen) leaf lard and would love to try it sometime.

@Kyle — I would *definitely* do a VAP Cholesterol profile as it gives a breakdown of lipoproteins (LDL patterning, apo(b), etc) and is profoundly more useful than just LDL/HDL/TC. Also, we like to do C-peptide as it’s a better indication of insulin status than just A1C and fasting glucose.

Great info on here. I love it! Where can I buy duck and leaf lard? I found some pork rendered lard at the local latin market, but that was it.

After reading this article I went to the Butcher at my neighborhood grocery store and asked for leaf lard or duck fat. You should have seen the looks on their faces. They called there supplier and they couldn’t even get it for me. UT might not be the best place to find these. Any good websites I could order it from?

My favorite cooking fat is lard. I use it to cook my eggs, bacon and pancakes. It makes everything taste better and has an amazing mouthfeel. Simply put, animal fats are ALWAYS going to be better for you than vegetable oils.