What is tallow?
Tallow is fat rendered from beef (or less often mutton), which is why it’s sometimes called beef lard. Like many other saturated fats, it’s solid at room temperature but melts into a liquid when heated.
Tallow’s appearance and texture are described as being similar to butters', since it’s solid and a beige/white color when cooled. However, it has a drier, waxy texture and somewhat different taste than butter. Tallow can be used in cooking and in our case skincare.
Types
Although most people refer to only beef fat as tallow, technically other animal fats can also be called by the same name. Some commercial types of tallow contain fat derived from multiple animals, including mutton, pigs and hogs.
Most often tallow is made by rendering suet, which is a hard, white type of fat found in the tissues surrounding animals’ organs.
Many consider the best quality beef tallow to be rendered from the fat around the kidneys, although it can also be made from rendering other fat. This fatty tissue around the kidneys stores many nutrients, especially when the cattle is grass-fed.
Nutrition facts
Tallow is a mostly saturated animal fat, although it contains some unsaturated fats too. The breakdown of fats in tallow is estimated to be 45 percent to 55 percent saturated fat, 40 percent to 50 percent monounsaturated fat and 3 percent to 7 percent polyunsaturated fat.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one tablespoon of tallow has about:
Calories: 115
Total Fat: 12.8 g
Saturated Fat: 6.4 g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 5.4 g
0 grams of carbs, protein, sugar or fiber
In terms of nutrient content, the highest-quality beef tallow comes from grass-fed cattle, as opposed to those conventionally raised on feedlots and fed grains. Grass-fed cattle tend to store more omega-3s, CLA and other beneficial compounds in their bodies compared to cows that are fed less healthy diets.
Tallow rendered from grass-fed cattle provides some of the following nutrients:
Vitamins A, D, K, E and B12
Choline
CLA
Other fatty acids, including oleic acid, palmitoleic acid, stearic acid, linoleic acid and others
Can help hydrate skin
Why is tallow good for your skin? It’s rich in fatty acids that help form the lipids that keep skin protected and moisturized.
These include palmitoleic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid (the same type of fat found in olive oil).
Consuming fats can help support the skin, while some fats, including tallow, can also be applied topically to your skin.
Some benefits of tallow for skin health include:
Improving moisture and treating dryness
Helping increase skin’s flexibility and ability to heal
Supporting the protective barrier function of skin
Where to buy tallow
Look for organic tallow sourced from grass-fed cows at a local farmers market or health food store. You may also be able to find it at your local butcher shop.
How to make tallow
Purchase some grass-fed beef fat, such as from a butcher shop or farmers market. You may need to buy a big chunk before grinding or cutting it up and rendering it into liquid fat.
Grind the fat, or cut it up into very small pieces (or ask the butcher to do this for you). Put the fat into a slow cooker on low or medium for several hours. You will hear crackling noises while it cooks. We use the dry render method meaning we do not add any additional liquids to the oil keeping natural.
Once the noise stops and there are only liquid tallow and some crispy bits (called greaves or cracklings), it’s done. Try to turn the heat off as soon as the noise stops. Strain it through a mesh strainer and repeat the process three times for the cleanest tallow without removing all of its beneficial effects.
When complete. Let it cool off for an hour, then strain it through a mesh strainer and store in a glass mason jar. If you keep it in an airtight container it doesn’t need to be refrigerated short term, however some people choose to refrigerate it if keeping it for a while.
Tallow soap
Traditionally, many soap bars were made with tallow, since it helps harden and lather soap while also supporting skin’s natural barrier.
If you’re familiar with making soap at home using vegetable oils, you can try using tallow instead.
To make homemade tallow soap, combine it with sodium hydroxide, water, jojoba or almond oil, along with essential oils, such as lavender, to improve the smell and soothing quality. You can purchase our homemade tallow bars from our site.
Referenced from draxe.com published on December 11, 2024 by Jillian Levy, CHHC.
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