Do you save your bacon fat?

[jfarms]

Bacon Grease is a god send... always using it in something..from green beans to macaroni and tomatoes and add some when making biscuits from scratch.. always got to have some bacon grease around.. i keep it in a jar by my stove..with a lid on it.

 

[Wifezilla]

I don't usually use it to cook with because of DH high cholesterol

Bacon grease (and other saturated fats) can raise LDL, but it also raises HDL and lowers VLDL (the very bad kind). The thing that raises the bad cholesterol while lowering the good cholesterol is CARBOHYDRATES.

So hubby should use the bacon grease without fear and skip the toast next time

 

[Big Daddy]

I save it around my waist. I use it to shorten my life.

 

[TanksHill]

On another note I have noticed a difference in the fat that comes from my bacon v.s. sausage. The sausage fat is white. The bacon fat is usually more yellow in color. I now am only saving the sausage drippings.

Do any of you know why this is? I am sure it relates to the cut of the meat. Then I was thinking that bacon is cured right? So more chemicals involved. Any ideas??? g

 

[freemotion]

Bacon is also smoked, maybe that is what is coloring it. Pork fat is white, bacon is pork, so my guess is the smoking process.

I save fat, too. Mostly chicken fat, as we rarely ever eat bacon, and we make our own sausage so no grease cooks out of it. I worry more about the chemicals than the fats, animal fats are not as bad for you as the soy and corn industries would like you to believe. Fatty deposits in the circulatory system were examined in one study that found that most of the fats in the blockage were the type found in veg oils, not animal fats.

Although, toxins are often deposited in fatty tissue, and this bothers me when eating CAFO raised animals, or rendering fat from CAFO raised animals. Haven't solved this issue, but it is on my mind and I am working towards it. Side of beef, side of pork in the freezer this fall, that is the goal!

I will buy or make salt pork to flavor beans and greens and such.

 

[Wifezilla]

Fatty deposits in the circulatory system were examined in one study that found that most of the fats in the blockage were the type found in veg oils, not animal fats.

Exactly! It is the high omega 6 vegetable fats (that are usually rancid by the time you buy them) that clog your arteries.

"The Framingham Heart Study is often cited as proof of the lipid hypothesis. This study began in 1948 and involved some 6,000 people from the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. Two groups were compared at five-year intervalsthose who consumed little cholesterol and saturated fat and those who consumed large amounts. After 40 years, the director of this study had to admit: "In Framingham, Mass, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the persons serum cholesterol. . . we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least and were the most physically active."3 The study did show that those who weighed more and had abnormally high blood cholesterol levels were slightly more at risk for future heart disease; but weight gain and cholesterol levels had an inverse correlation with fat and cholesterol intake in the diet.4

In a multi-year British study involving several thousand men, half were asked to reduce saturated fat and cholesterol in their diets, to stop smoking and to increase the amounts of unsaturated oils such as margarine and vegetable oils. After one year, those on the "good" diet had 100% more deaths than those on the "bad" diet, in spite of the fact that those men on the "bad" diet continued to smoke! But in describing the study, the author ignored these results in favor of the politically correct conclusion: The implication for public health policy in the U.K. is that a preventive programme such as we evaluated in this trial is probably effective. . . ."5

The U.S. Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, (MRFIT) sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, compared mortality rates and eating habits of over 12,000 men. Those with "good" dietary habits (reduced saturated fat and cholesterol, reduced smoking, etc.) showed a marginal reduction in total coronary heart disease, but their overall mortality from all causes was higher. Similar results have been obtained in several other studies. The few studies that indicate a correlation between fat reduction and a decrease in coronary heart disease mortality also document a concurrent increase in deaths from cancer, brain hemorrhage, suicide and violent death.6

The Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (LRC-CPPT), which cost 150 million dollars, is the study most often cited by the experts to justify lowfat diets. Actually, dietary cholesterol and saturated fat were not tested in this study as all subjects were given a low-cholesterol, low-saturated-fat diet. Instead, the study tested the effects of a cholesterol-lowering drug. Their statistical analysis of the results implied a 24% reduction in the rate of coronary heart disease in the group taking the drug compared with the placebo group; however, nonheart disease deaths in the drug group increaseddeaths from cancer, stroke, violence and suicide.7 Even the conclusion that lowering cholesterol reduces heart disease is suspect. Independent researchers who tabulated the results of this study found no significant statistical difference in coronary heart disease death rates between the two groups.8 However, both the popular press and medical journals touted the LRC-CPPT as the long-sought proof that animal fats are the cause of heart disease, Americas number one killer. "
http://www.health-report.co.uk/saturated_fats_health_benefits.htm

 

[Home Maker]

There was a great article about this in Saveur magazine.

I make garlic/bacon dog biscuits. It's also good to add to corn bread batter.

 

[hennypenny9]

Great ideas! I rarely splurge on bacon, but when I do I save the grease to fry hash browns in. So good! I sometimes wonder if it's bad for me, but not for too long! (nice verification, Wifezilla) I'd rather cut out foods made in labs, (cheese-wiz!) than my lovely bacon.

 

[Tinychicken]

I buy the cheapest bread I can find in the supermarket. I use that to soak up bacon grease as well as other meat fats, like after browning ground beef, and put it in my suet feeder for the birds. They love it!