Using lard is as healthy as olive oil, canola or butter
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Did you know that your ancestors have eaten lard for thousands of years? Yes. And no, they did not die at 40 as wrongly believed.
Incredibly, diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, heart disease or diabetes was not a concern of our ancestors. These diseases were very rare before 1900, to the point that they did not need scientists to solve mysteries about their prevalence. Our ancestors simply ate real food and fed. Of course there were diseases, but these were related to other areas. Chronic degenerative disease rates were very low.
"Including infant mortality rates in calculating life expectancy creates the mistaken impression that previous generations died at a young age; Americans did not die en masse at the age of 46 in 1907. The fact is that maximum human life expectancy, a concept that is often confused with “life expectancy,” has remained more or less the same for thousands of years. The idea that our ancestors routinely died young (for example, at 40 years) has no basis in scientific fact. When Socrates died at the age of 70 around 399 BC, he did not die of old age but by execution. It is ironic that the ancient Greeks lived to be 70 or older, while that more than 2,000 years later, modern Americans don't live much longer. " Benjamin Radford said in Bad Science Column.
Olive oil has approximately 77% monounsaturated fat and lard has 48% monounsaturated fat (this is animal fat, not vegetable fat sold in supermarkets that contains trans fat). Butter has 30% monounsaturated fat. This means that after olive oil, lard is even healthier than butter. The main fat in lard (oleic acid) is a fatty acid associated with a lower risk of depression. A 2005 study from Thailand also reported that oleic acid has high anti-cancer benefits and may lower the risk of breast cancer. Those same monounsaturated fats are responsible for lowering LDL (bad cholesterol) levels while only increasing HDL (good cholesterol) levels.
Lard also contains high amounts of vitamin D, a necessary fat-soluble vitamin. It is estimated that 1 tablespoon of butter contains 1000 IU of vitamin D. As a society, we are extremely deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D is necessary for our immunity, vitamin D intake can prevent frequent colds and flu each year. Taking vitamin D as a medication is recommended but this is a processed and synthetic version of the vitamin, not real food.
Although vitamin D can be obtained from plants, it is in much less quantity compared to lard.
While it is possible to get vitamin D from the sun, the problem is that humans are not too efficient at assimilating vitamin D from the sun. In the recommended 20-30 minutes of sun exposure per day, you will only receive 100-200 IU. Pigs, on the other hand, are highly capable of absorbing vitamin D from the sun and stores it in fat under the skin.
A differentiating fact with forget and canola oil is that lard does not burn at high temperatures, making it perfect for cooking or deep-frying. This also means that it does not decompose and oxidize, creating harmful free radicals, which is why it cannot be cooked with olive oil at high temperatures.
So, maybe the next time someone tells you or questions the fact that the bacon is bad, that the butter will clog your arteries or that the fat will make you fat, suggest that they read this article Consuming fats dramatically slows aging of the brain or Why is consuming fats so important from birth?. Or if you want to go directly to the scientific base, you can read it in these books: The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease-and the Statin-Free Plan That Will o Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
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