How Do You Know What Kind of Tallow/Suet you May Be Getting? Part 1

This is a complicated subject. You will find many tallow makers locally and online. As with store bought products, how do you know what you are getting without being an expert scientist, farmer and everything else you would have to be in order to know exactly what you are getting. Sadly, none of us really are "experts" and even the scientists are all humans that are still trying to get things correct.

So I will be the first to say I am no expert. However, I want to share what I have found on my journey in making the MOST "natural" tallow and other skin products I possibly can.

First and foremost. The words grass fed/finished are not all equal. As I shared in the Cost of Tallow, grass fed/finished tallow can describe tallow from a cow that spent most of their life in a feed lot and was sold to a farmer who then put them on grass for a short time before butchering. As with humans, the saying "you are what you eat" comes to mind. If you spend most of your life eating candy and processed foods and suddenly eat salads a month before your death, do your cells and organs contain more candy/processed toxins or are your cells healthy from the salad? In other words, are your organs healthy because you ate salads for one month before you died? I will let you answer that for yourself because I am not an "expert". However, common sense says most likely your organs are less healthy from a life of majority candy/processed foods you ate rather than one month of salads.

Second is the huge corporate brands of already rendered tallow that MOST cheaper grass fed/finished tallow makers use. This corporate grass fed/finished tallow online is very cheap. It would cut our tallow costs by two thirds (at least) if we would switch to online already rendered tallow for two reasons. It's cheaper than the raw suet we use from No Grain - 100% grass fed/finished cows from birth to finish. And the time, expense and care involved in rendering that suet properly is outrageous.

But what is that cheap grass fed/finished corporate rendered tallow made of? Every label I read states it is made of Lard and Trim Fat. To the non-renderer that means nothing. To the farmer and SOME renderers that means a lot. Lard and Trim Fat do not have the vitamins and minerals the fat around the kidneys have. So you are getting just grease and whatever the fragrance, carrier oil and essential oil that is added offer? Maybe toxins from the chemicals and industrial cleaners used for large processing plants. Are they using real essential oils or just what is sold on amazon called essential oils? Did you know there is no such thing as peach, strawberry or mango essential oils? Did you know they sell them on Amazon labeled essential oils?

The other issue you have to consider is what does corporate do to that Trim Fat and Lard before, during and after rendering to make it a neutral smell, sellable to all those cheap tallow makers. I have heard many home tallow renderers use water, bleach and salt to neutralize the smell of lard, fat and suet, which removes the vitamins and minerals and/or adds toxins. What does corporate do to their rendered tallow? Who knows. That's why we render our own without any of the above.

Part 2: How ANY grain fed to a cow changes the fat used for tallow.