I don't know how much this 25-lb bucket of lard costs at Wal-Mart, but I'll bet you'd be hard-pressed to find a lower price-per-calorie product than this. Plus, it's hydrogenated!
A little Googling taught me that the bucket Ray is holding contains 105,000 calories and 11,200 grams of saturated fat. Not only that, but as the bucket proudly proclaims, it is preserved with BHA and propyl gallate, everyone’s favorite carcinogenic preservatives! It’s like an old bucket of paint toting it’s extraordinarily high lead content. Brilliant, ConAgra Foods!
Link
the latest
latest episodes
what does one do with lard these days exactly?
I should probably point out in the interest of fairness that ConAgra sold off Armour in late 2006 to Smithfield Foods, so it should probably read "Brilliant, Smithfield!"
I fail to see the brilliance of 25lbs of pig lard--Though I guess it makes for great soap and glycerin, so rejoice, Tyler Durdens of the world!
it is still often used in baking plus the making of any traditional southern food such as fried chicken. let us not forget that taco cart you find so quaint is using lard in its beans.
Yet Lard contains just 40 percent saturated fat (compared with nearly 60 percent for butter). Its level of monounsaturated fat (the "good" fat) is a respectable 45 percent, double butter's paltry 23 or so percent.
You could use that and a jar of olives to make Lard Peeps for everyone at easter!
Seeing as how rendered lard is pure fat and fat has 9 calories per gram regardless of its origin, any 25lb accumulation of fat (canola oil, beef tallow, olive oil, etc) will have the same number of calories...
Amount of the fat that's saturated, trans, etc, and presence of carcinogenic preservatives will vary.
Not to toot my own horn too much here, but I notice a problem with their lard packaging "Nutrition Information" in 2003. They had marked a pound as containing 105 tablespoons.
I wrote them a letter, and they sent me their thanks, with a bunch of 15 cent coupons!
http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/lard/lard.html
Are you sure it's not 105, 000 kilo calories? Energy in food is usually measured in kilo-calories (thousands of calories)- and 1 gram of fat contains 9 kcal.
-nerd :P
By the way, there's not reason to hydrogenate a hard fat like lard. Hydrogenation is only used to stiffen up liquid oils that are unsaturated; it would be a waste of money in this case.
How much did this bucket of lard cost? I found a 25-lb bucket of lard listed for sale online for $55, but I have no idea if that's a representative price. http://www.mpbio.com/product_info.php/united_states/&products_id=902140
If you're looking to maximize your calories for the dollar on a smaller, day-to-day scale, you can get 370-calorie cherry pies from Aldi's for 29 cents each. (If my math is correct, that's roughly 12 calories per penny vs. 20 per penny if you spend $55 on a 105,000 calorie bucket of lard.)
Ry pprs t hv lrdy cnsmd svrl f ths bckts nd s xctd by th prspct f nthr.
Lets not forget Mexican food. One reason a 'real' bean dish tastes so good.
i go for 50 lbs of rice for $11 at Sams. that's 80,000 calories, and won't kill you as fast.
"It’s like an old bucket of paint toting it’s extraordinarily high lead content."
or
"...touting its extraordinarily high lead content."
As others have pointed out, lard is not as unhealthy for you as, say, butter or margarine, and has about the same number of calories. Moreover, if you saute onions in some lard, then strain it into a suitable container and let it congeal, it makes a heavenly spread for crusty bread.
Also, BHA and propyl gallate appear to be far less carcinogenic than, say, peanut butter, basil or black pepper. See: http://potency.berkeley.edu/chempages/PROPYL%20GALLATE.html
http://potency.berkeley.edu/chempages/BUTYLATED%20HYDROXYANISOLE.html
Good catch #13. That's a twofer.
Can one use it instead of paint?
Joel: stiff fats like lard are hydrogenated not to change their stiffness properties at room temperature, but to preserve them. This is the other big reason partially hydrogenated frying grease was so popular before the backlash. Converting the cis-unsaturated bonds in lard (even though much of it is saturated) to trans-unsaturated protects them from the fast oxidation (rancidity) to which they would normally be susceptible.
The final "it's" in the Mark F.'s blurb should be not have an apostrophe, i.e., it should read "its" instead. "It's" represents the contraction "It is" while "its" represents the possessive article.
The introduction into our diet back in the early part of the last century of hydrogenated oils to solidify them and prolong their shelf-lives (and in the case of crisco; to look and behave like the product it hoped to replace, lard) coincides very nicely with the rise in arterial circulatory system disease (arterial sclerosis) particularly if one allows for the delay that naturally is part of the process (you don't get hardening of the arteries over-night). Of course it's part of a larger picture including sedentary life-styles, smoking, and a wide array of other potentially and poorly understood problematic new products.
It should be noted that even lard these days is hydrogenated and stands in contrast to the kinds of healthy contribution that un-modified animal fats have for us. Our public health sense has been so badly distorted by a public health sector that is so dominated by the agri-business concerns that a clear picture of our relationship with diet has never really emerged, but the actuary tables reveal the unseen and newer emerging understanding on how the body metabolizes is shedding some light on the subject and dispelling a lot of myths on nutrition. The sooner the better.