Suicides exploded during the great depression. The stats are pretty alarming. They state that in 1928 22 people per 100,000 were committing suicide. These suicide jumps have happened over time and are often due to economic downturn.
The fact that the stock market suffers, and the DOW is dropping is not what makes people depressed. Its money and its food. Layoffs and scarcity are the conditions that walk people to the edge of a tall building.
While those suicide stats might alarm you, consider what we are dealing with today. Between 2009 and 2015 suicide rates in the U.S jumped to 30 people per 100,000! Yes, higher than the great depression. This is a huge tell in regard to the condition of this nation.
Lack of Food
As I mentioned a lack of jobs and food was the defining factor in this spike in suicides during the great depression. Men could not provide for their families and they offed themselves out of guilt and fear. It’s a terrible predicament to find oneself in.
We are even less equipped to deal with something like this today than in the past. People are weaker today, that explains why 30 per 100,000 are killing themselves when there is food and money to be had at every turn, if you are willing to put in the work.
One of the calorie rich foods that people used to survive the great depression was lard. This rendered pork fat was used in everything from frying, biscuits, cookies and preserving other foods. Let’s take a closer look at how you can stockpile lard, the calorie rich survival food.
What is Lard
Lard is rendered pork fat that has been strained of any meat bits or other impurities. Most lard is sourced from the belly of the pig, this area is also cured and smoked to make bacon. The fat is often collected and stored in a container for use and reuse.
Because lard is strained fat, it also has incredible staying power. You might be surprised to learn that lard can stay on your counter for as many as three months without refrigeration. This is a conservative number that lends itself more towards modern food safety rules and less toward historical use.
If you are old enough, you know that mom or grandma had a can of bacon grease or lard that never left the counter. It may have been as old as you when you were a child.
What is known about the environment in regard to bacteria is that there is not enough oxygen for typically dangerous bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella to survive. This is the good news. However, anaerobic environments, i.e. those without oxygen, can breed other types of bacteria. Things like the deadly Clostridium Botulinum which is the harbinger of botulism.
So, you must be aware and careful when storing lard. I will discuss a much safer method later in the article.
Related: Canning Amish Poor Man’s Steak
Making and Stockpiling
The basis of all lard is a superior quality fat. This fat is slowly rendered and strained. From here it can be stored in many ways.
You can buy backfat from most supermarkets and if you want to upgrade the quality to a pasture raised pork or something that’s fully organic or whatever derivation you might be looking for. With my experience a pasture raised pig is the very best you can get your hands on.
To best render your fatback, you want to cut it in strips and place it in a pot with a little water in the bottom of the pot. The water will keep your fat from getting too brown during the rendering process.
Place to pot over a low heat and let it work. Do not rush this process. You want the fat to slowly melt off. You might not be able to fit all the backfat into a smaller pot. You can add a little at a time and it will shrink as it begins to render.
Once you have rendered all of the fat you can strain this incredible cooking medium through a fine sieve and store it. The process is very simple, and storage is just as simple.
There are a few methods of storing lard and they all depend on the level of convenience you are looking for. If you have the ability to freeze your lard, you can do so in a plastic container or even a ball jar. I would recommend cooling the lard thoroughly before storing it in the freezer.
In the freezer your lard will hold up indefinitely. The product will hardly even change if it its well covered.
In the refrigerator it is often said that lard will hold up in the refrigerator for up to 3 months. This is a highly conservative, food safety driven answer. Nothing wrong with that. The reality, you can keep that lard in a fridge for years. You might need to scrape a little mold off the top and every few months you might also want to reheat it and pour it into a new or clean container.
Remember, if you have a nice smooth surface you can manage things like oxidation and mold growth easier. If you have surface that is riddled with scoops and spooned out sections, it will grow mold easier and be harder to manage. This is why you should reheat and repour your lard if you are storing it in the fridge.
Lard without refrigeration
The very best method for storing lard without refrigeration is a pressure canning method.
When the lard is completely cooled, meticulously wipe off the rims of the jars to ensure that no pieces remain. Then place a warm, lid right out of the boiling water on top of your jar. Fill each jar with just standard head space beginning right at the ring marks. Place a fresh sage leaf on the top of your cooled lard.
To preserve, you’ll use the pressure canning method of 100-120 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. (Follow your manufacturer’s instructions for high altitude.)
Most preppers are short on salt and fat. Their stockpile is full of dried foods but when it comes to fat to cook in and salt to season with, most preppers are short. I used this process on pork backfat but if you were to do this with bear fat or any other fat, you can create your own cooking fat.
You may also like:
How to Use Acorns as Survival Food
The Lost Superfood of the Ancient Incas (Video)
7 Super Cheap Foods To Stockpile That People Usually Throw Away
Disgusting. You shouldn’t try to make a survival food that increases the risk of heart disease and heart attack. Counterintuitive I think.
Oh contrae’ my friend. Natural fats such as lard, coconut oil and similar products that were once considered verbatin are now being found as much more healthy for you than the alternatives.
I encourage you to look into this.
keeping in mind in a survival situation you need to do what ever you can to make it through, and also todays foods to me are garbage, its more about the cash than your health,
when I was young i can remember that tin can of bacon fat on the stove top.
eating like that took my mother into her 80’s and my dad; 90 and still going strong…. moderation/hard work … like the old days.
Excellent comment, Mark and very accurate. They did not have all the gross, unhealthy additives that are found today, nor did they have the many “fast-food” unhealthy places. They ate at home often with food raised in their garden.
I heard the Food and Drug Administration unofficially back in 1998 or 1999 stated that it was healthier to drink the water out of the Hudson river, than to eat American processed food with all the junk they put in it.Over all if it’s company canned or boxed doesn’t matter it’s bad for your health in the long run. There are things put into your food that doesn’t even have to be on the label if it’s under a certain amount. What I have recently learned if a product is considered un-healthy and is forced to be removed they just add something to it change it’s name and put it right back in under a different name. But if it’s in a time’s like the above story or end of world as we know it and that’s all there is. I’m sure your not going to care or even read the label to see how many calories it has. Better to die of diabetes or some other sickness cases by your food 10 or so years later than to go hungry today.. Thus stocking food for those conditions anything with a long shelf life. Other people may say this is better than so and so. But a hungry stomach really doesn’t care. Emanon I bet my bottom dollar if your in that type of situation and all you can find is food bad for your heart and you haven’t eaten in 3 or 4 days you will happily eat it. And if you do complain I’ll just take it back and give it to someone else.
There are so many preservatives in processed foods these days that I am surprised that funeral homes have to embalm dead people.
You knowledge on lard is sadly lacking. There was virtually no heart disease before the early 1900”s when lard and butter was the predominate fat consumed.
In the 1920’s polyunsaturated oils and fats were marketed with a vengeance as healthier then lard.
You are a victim of that marketing propaganda even though you cant show us any scientific facts to back up your paranoia about fat.
Dudley Dogooder’s and Safety Sally’s have cost us more as a nation than any thief or scoundrel….
In their never ending compulsion to save us from ourselves they have stolen or given away all of our freedoms… Will they never stop “helping” us?
D.: I was taught that heart disease did not become a problem till after WWII, when grain-fed meat and eggs came on the market. Eggs, dairy, meat from grass-fed are all low in LDL cholesterol and high in Omega fatty acids. At the same time, wheat became popular and important, where before people rarely ate it. I stay off the grain and try to keep to a carnivore diet and feel better. niio
I, too, remember the tin can with bacon fat. I also remember my mother taking a piece of fat back and swirling it across a very hot cast iron skillet before she cooked her pancakes. Her pancakes never stuck and they turned out beautiful. We have to remember pigs raised back then were a whole different animal. Now, sad to say. they are toxic…unless you get local pasture raised and fed healthy food. Those were truly “good” days.
UCS: A friend up north of Phoenix advertises his pigs, pasture raised, 600 bucks for one 300 LBS, and gets it. A rancher near here pastures 500 head of feeder calves every year. He’s getting 4,000/beef, already cut and wrapped. He has a waiting list. Both irrigate pastures but they both have plenty of water rights. niio
My mother, grandmother and mother-in-law did this, too. My mother lived to be 100 years old, my grandmother was 92. My MIL passed due to a blood clot after a fall. (That is what did my mom in too).
I, too, remember the tin can with bacon fat. I also remember my mother taking a piece of fat back and swirling it across a very hot cast iron skillet before she cooked her pancakes. Her pancakes never stuck and they turned out beautiful. We have to remember pigs raised back then were a whole different animal. Now, sad to say. they are toxic…unless you get local pasture raised and fed healthy food. Those were truly “good” days.
I’m glad you said it. People are so misinformed about fats.
You need to do some new research on this. Your statement is ridiculous.
Actually it’s been shown that your body knows how to use and removed natural fats. Heart disease is far more common when using rancid, deodorized oils like margarine.
That, and slathering on sunblock. Far worse for your organs than the necessary fats. Not trans fat, but good old-fashioned fatback and bacon.
yup….. exactly!
Don’t ever eat store bought bakery products. Almost all use lard instead of shortening. Most frostings are lard based.
Not anymore. Most commercial bakeries switched to hydrogenated vegetable oil about 40 years ago (or longer) because it was cheaper and it opened product to the kosher/halil/vegan markets.
And hydrogenated vegetable oil increased shelf life of the products making Twinkies and DingDongs have a shelf life, according to urban legend, of over 500 years.
I recently read somewhere that Oreos make a good survival food as they also have an indefinite shelf life. Don’t know if that is true.
I put away Triscuits and Saltines almost two years ago in their original packaging without any added protection. Recently I opened a box of each. They had definitely managed to absorb moisture through the plasticized paper inner packaging, the Saltines more than the Triscuits. They were edible, didn’t have any mold on them and the flavor remained. They had definitely absorbed moisture, although that could have been corrected by heating them over low heat if one felt the need. Smeared with peanut butter or some other condiment, the degraded texture was not noticeable to me.
Two years was definitely past the “use by” date on the packaging.
Why the sage leaf before pressure canning? This totally mystifies me.
During a SHTF situation I could care less about how the lard is or isn’t healthy. I would like to know why use fresh sage leaf? Is there a beneficial or just taste thing?
Lard is not unhealthy… that is a complete lie. Your body stores excess energy and nutrition as “lard” because it is the most healthy and efficient way to store it.
Certain herbs have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, etc properties so they are often added to food. Just as pork (ham) is cured in salt for the same reason.
Thank you, I do agree with Lard being healthier than other things but didn’t want to sit and argue with the nay sayers. 😉
https://draxe.com/nutrition/sage-benefits/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21630133/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/sage
I have learned a lot working with naturopathic doctors and medical doctors in my business. The FDA has instructed food producers to remove hydrogenated fats/oils from foods within the next couple of years. The reason for this is the hydrogenated molecules so closely resemble water molecules that the cells in our bodies can’t differentiate between the two. Once they have absorbed the hydrogenated molecule it hardens and the cell can no longer absorb other nutrients. It begins to break down but has lost the ability to communicate with other cells so it is not able to be repaired or replaced. This creates apoptosis and the cell becomes degraded and essentially toxic. This creates all kinds of health issues and over time and with continued consumption, health will fail. I don’t allow anything with this ingredient in my home, period. I also encouraged my kids to stop letting my grandchildren eat anything with this ingredient as well as high fructose corn syrup. The result is that headaches have stopped, ADHD is no longer evident, and weight was lost. The obesity in children is not necessarily how much they eat, but often what they are eating. These two ingredients are poison in my book.
The use by date is just a scheme by the food companies to increase sales . if the can is not rusted ,dented or something to cause it to loose its seal it should still be good 10 years from now instead of just 2 years.
It’s not just losing the seal. If the can is dented the interior coating of the vessel can rupture exposing the food to bare metal. I have 25 years in the metal can industry.
The factory packaging insufficient for such extended storage?
almost all “store bought bakery products” will not be made with lard, shortening is cheaper for them and considered to be more shelf stable in a non refrigerated bakery case. Given that I agree that you should avoid store bakeries
That’s ok. I use lard in my cooking.
Professional chef and baker here—— frostings are NEVER lard based! Shortening, maybe with some butter, absolutely. In fact, lard is rarely used in a commercial shop unless they are making savory pot pie crusts.
Nik: Yes, love to cook, used to work in 4-5 star restaurants. But, at one time, people used any shortening they had to bake with. For decades, creameries have shorted dairymen who bring in milk with ‘too high’ a butterfat content. they were encouraged by the Dep. Ag to stop pasturing because that raises butterfat content.
Post SHTF, tallow and anything we can get to use in baked good. No matter how bad life seems, fresh bread and a little pie set things aright 🙂 niio
What a knucklehead! Lard is from the pig and shortening is from a lab.
smarter: Tell Izzy she’s an IQ point ahead now. ALL cooking oils and grease are used as shortening. Best for making sweet things, the shortening called butter. They shorten molecule fibers to produce something that ‘crumbles’. Do your research!
My cholesterol numbers improved to where my doctor put me on once a year testing instead of every three months when I made the switch from stuff like Crisco (solid and oil) and Mazola to lard. Not saying it’ll work for everyone but it worked for me. Also, I find that foods cooked with lard are more satisfying in smaller portions than with ersatz oil/shortening.
Mazola made for some good parties.
Haha haha! I see what you’re saying! Thanks for the laugh!
I remember those days! So much healthier than wrestling in the mud!!!
sugars are a much bigger culprit with regards to heart disease than “good” fats ever were.
85 grams of lard contains 82 milligrams of cholesterol. But, 85 gms is almost 3 oz., and I can’t imagine anyone eating that much lard. So, let’s say 1 oz, or 28 grams is 27 mg of cholesterol. People on a low cholesterol diet shouldn’t eat more than 20 mg. total, per day. Butter, on the other hand, has 190mg of cholesterol per once.
Ghee, or clarified butter, having no milk solids or water content, is a bit higher in cholesterol but can be stored unrefrigerated or in canning jars like lard. Butter, on the other hand, can quickly turn rancid. Margarine, only if a good brand that is non-hydrogenated, is zero cholesterol. It will separate if left unrefrigerated, and will dehydrate if left in the freezer more than a year. Comparing these numbers, lard isn’t quite so bad, but a high quality margarine is best.
Our brains are made up of 80% cholesterol. It is imperative that we eat our good fats like chicken skin, avocado, bacon, lard, butter, etc. I have been eating these good fats for over 15 years, I am 65 years old and my doctors cannot believe how good my blood work is, especially my cholesterol. Contrary to what a medical doctor will tell you, there isn’t a disease out there (including heart disease), but I don’t blame the doctors. The way they were taught in medical school was to just treat symptoms and get customers for Big Pharma. No margarine is good for you, even high quality. I have been studying about nutrition for 15 years and have learned from some of the best doctors around (all naturopathic).
Norna, I agree 100%!
Our bodies are intelligent and self-regulating. Just put the right things in it and it’ll take care of itself. I’ll take lard any day over the alternatives.
And from what I’ve read, margarine was originally produced to fatten up the turkeys for thanksgiving. When the turkeys wouldn’t eat it, they flavored it and sold it to the population as a “butter alternative”… I guess to fatten ya up!?
During early WWII, margarine was introduced, they said it was made from vegetable oil, this was way before GMO, it was white and said it was healthy. People wouldn’t buy it because it was tasteless so they made a yellow packet to mix, you would mash the margarine while adding the color packet; success, sales picked up while heart attacks increased. Then all margarine was made look a like to butter, even today. Someone tested margarine with animals if they would eat it, they opened the margarine on a clean floor and recorded rats sniffed it but would not eat; a good test.
You NEED cholesterol: Beware of the Cholesterol Scare & Lie from FDA, all they have are drugs. Cholesterol is made in the liver, so liver health must receive nutrients, I take Norwegian Cod Liver Oil in the liquid, Recommend take (1) teaspoon a day, I take (2) Tablespoons a day, also Vitamin C buffered 10,000 to 15,000 mg a day. Vitamin D3 15,000 iu a day; Vit. C makes all liquids young like when you were a teen ager, cholesterol is now young, before it was old cholesterol, large clumps before it left the liver. 85% of your brain rests in a pool of cholesterol; low cholesterol the brain dries out. It feeds on cholesterol. Your body uses it to build cell membranes and make vitamin D. It helps form bile acids to digest fat. And it helps maintain the health of your intestinal wall.
Cholesterol also makes up a large part of your brain as well as the protective layer of your nerves. So it’s essential for good brain function as you age. You also need it for the proper function of serotonin receptors in the brain to ward off depression. And it helps stave off neurological diseases like dementia, MS and Parkinson’s.
Without cholesterol you wouldn’t be able to produce testosterone, estrogen, progesterone or cortisol. It’s a key building block for all of your hormones.
I’ve been supplementing for 40 years, now at age 88.5 yrs. in perfect health.
Knight: Yes, but we need HDL cholesterol, not LDL, which clogs arteries. We get HDL when we get enough exercise. I’m mostly carnivore now, and my LDL is lower good ranger because I avoid gluten. When in Pennsylvania, I accidentally, sort of, ate something with gluten and less than a week later was in the clinic. My HDL is always good/high because I’m active.
Good fats are lard, butter, tallow and so on. Bad fats are anything with hydrogen added, but also most vegetable fats. niio
Your about 50 years behind on your science of how the body forms cholesterol. Also about 4 million years behind on the science of stable isotopes that prove humans who eat large quantities of animal fat are healthier. You bought into the anti fat propaganda from the 1920’s polyunsaturated manufacturers.
If properly stored, butter will last a long time. I don’t know the definition of “long time”. I do know that during the 19th century butter was shipped from England, around the Horn of Africa to Hong Kong and India.
I believe it was shipped in containers filled with sawdust. Everything I have read about such shipments is that they were welcomed by the English folks who were stationed in those two far-flung posts of the British Empire.
Certainly temperatures in the hold of a sailing vessel rounding the Horn and beating its way up the east coast of Africa would be in the high 90s as there was little ventilation in the holds of sailing vessels and certainly no a/c.
Even today we do not put the butter we use daily in the refrigerator. It sits out on the counter until consumed. On very hot days, and SoCal has experienced some record hot days recently, it does not turn rancid. It get soft, sometimes when the temperature is in the low 90s it is very soft. I don’t know what it would be like if the temperature here reached into the low 100s as it has in some locals or even the mid 110s in Palm Springs and other low desert locales, it probably would be soup and might be advisable to move it to a cooler location.
I don’t know how long it takes butter to turn rancid obviously the week or ten days or so that a 1/4 pound of butter sits on the kitchen counter is not enough to turn it rancid.
Certainly it can go for long periods of time in fairly warm temperatures if protected somewhat as evidenced by the experience in the 19th century of shipping butter from England to India or Hong Kong by sailing ship. Those voyages generally lasted 3 or more months depending upon a variety of circumstances. Then once landed, it was shipped overland by horse drawn carts or even bullock drawn carts to its final destination, especially in India.
I visited the Butter Museum in Cork, Ireland a few years ago – fascinating! this town provisioned almost ALL British and Scandinavian ships sailing across the Atlantic. the butter was packed into tins and VERY HEAVILY SALTED.
The salt was rinsed out before using -but acted as a preservative for long-term storage without refrigeration.
LCC,
It is the milk fat in butter that goes rancid after a month or so…. if you process the butter down to ghee it will store at room temperature forever almost – it still retains a lot of the butter flavor and makes for a good high temp cooking oil
I make survival food to survive. I usually look at shelf life and calorie count. I’ll let you worry about disgusting. Don’t swing by shtf I got hard tack to. OMG AAAAWWWWW????
i think the point is having a variety of different things that you store in your cashe. Ladd is like butter. It got a bad rap for a long time.
You will need some fats to cook your foods and oils can go rancid fast in many conditions. When it comes down to it, it’s all personal preference. Just prepare to your own needs and desires. (But I love home-made flour tortillas)
Recent studies are beginning to show that saturated fats in the diet are not the evil they were considered during the last half of the 20th century. Best to keep your eyes on new information than to stick to knee-jerk “disgusted” reactions. And..ever had doughnuts made with lard? They are amazing. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/5-studies-on-saturated-fat
the point is survival! you need the energy that the lard can provide, and if it come to survival you will need all the energy you can muster. just being super active like negate most bad issues with any food
I think everyone pretty much answered this comment. When one is STARVING, fat is needed. You, Emanon, are NOT thinking in SURVIVAL MODE. You would die from starvation before heart attack.
Oh, recent studies report health is better with lard than other carcinogenic oils with preservatives/gmo elements and margarines which isn’t even food!!
AND..for your information –olive oil use works to prevent several types of female cancer–breast cancer and colon and ovarian.
So, research more, please.
Naturalhealthnews.com is a great daily read. 🙂
I’d like to grow my own olive trees. They are “illegal” here in the valley of the sun. Grow and preserve your own food. then you know what you have.
Lisa: Olives illegal? How did they manage that? niio
Sorry Red, not to get back to you. Olive trees are illegal, cause the neighbors will sue for the mess. The birds eat and drop the seeds, that naturally germinate. Need to be zoned ag to plant them.
You are so right. That is why rabbit are not great survival meat. You will starve eating just rabbit they have no fat to speak of.
You can starve from most wild meats. In the old days, we worked HARD just to survive. Fats give us energy, and help regulate our system.
In a survival situation your body needs calories. When you’re starving, heart disease is not high on your list of priorities. In fact lard will keep your body from starting to break down its own organs for energy.
allen – yes, exactly.
If you want to lose weight and be healthy… eat fat. Not just any fat – eat healthy natural fat.
your body will thank by not storing fat, and thinking that you are starving to death…
I heard the Food and Drug Administration unofficially back in 1998 or 1999 stated that it was healthier to drink the water out of the Hudson river, than to eat American processed food with all the junk they put in it.Over all if it’s company canned or boxed doesn’t matter it’s bad for your health in the long run. There are things put into your food that doesn’t even have to be on the label if it’s under a certain amount. What I have recently learned if a product is considered un-healthy and is forced to be removed they just add something to it change it’s name and put it right back in under a different name. But if it’s in a time’s like the above story or end of world as we know it and that’s all there is. I’m sure your not going to care or even read the label to see how many calories it has. Better to die of diabetes or some other sickness cases by your food 10 or so years later than to go hungry today.. Thus stocking food for those conditions anything with a long shelf life. Other people may say this is better than so and so. But a hungry stomach really doesn’t care. Emanon I bet my bottom dollar if your in that type of situation and all you can find is food bad for your heart and you haven’t eaten in 3 or 4 days you will happily eat it.
As you’ve been told already by other comments about what you think is disgusting. Keep in mind those that say the other with their research and all is based on profits. Most of the US has changed from Lard to Veggie Oil eating what the label says as low cal and other things. But we live in a time where there are more fat people, heart problems and cancer than any time in recorded history. I for one got away from what the Food and Drug Administration was saying and other health food things lost weight and got healthy all their stuff is for profit. You may not be old enough to remember but cigarettes where once endorsed by doctors. And anyone looking to make a buck can get a doctor to endorse their product. I’ve been given medication that the side effects where worse than what I was taking the medication for. But yet a doctor prescribed it. I went the herbal way and cured it. with no side effects. You see all these diet plans but yet people still getting fat. Already proven by health research that low fat milk by the way helps you gain weight. but advertisement says different and so do profits. Hell pasteurized anything is more harmful to your body than most anything else you can eat or drink. But that is not what the big dollar supplies say. Emanon Eat healthy is eating for the most part like your grandparents did. without all the things that free Enterprise puts in your food.
allen – yes, exactly.
If you want to lose weight and be healthy… eat fat. Not just any fat – eat healthy natural fat.
your body will thank by not storing fat, and thinking that you are starving to death…
Pick your poison, Starvation or a food that your body will utilize in it’s entirety because you are starving will keep you alive.
Watch “Oiling of America”. See what the seed oils do to our bodies. Seed oils could very easily be the cause of the heart problems.
Watch “Oiling of America”. See what the seed oils do to our bodies. Seed oils could very easily be the cause of the heart problems.
Would you rather starve to death now or worry about heart disease later. In a survival situation it will be eat whats available or go hungry. You will not be able to be so intolerant.
Bravo! It’s great that folks are realizing just how healthy natural pastured animal fats are and how we have been mislead for generations! Doubters do your research – it is amazing stuff, especially in skin care too!
Latest food guides are now including lard as a healthy fat. Just like eggs were given a bad rap for the last couple of decades, so was lard.
Fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar makes you fat. I know, I’m fat and I love sugar.
Fat adds calories important to survival. Healthy fats are great but this is not used in a great amounts.
I also use it for lamps when I’m out of kerosene. But also beef tallow is great too, you can make candles and lotions. But you have to add some fragrance or you’ll smell like a hamburger.
Lisa: I worked in restaurants where Japanese would hold banquets. When we prepared the beef or pork, instructions were to trim off no fat. They ate dessert first as an appetizer (cake, pie, and so on), then ate the fat off the meat, then the meat and deep-fried veggies. Except for a little rice, it was all low carb high fat. And they were thin as rails. I’m back on the carnivore diet and feel better. niio
“…in all that you do in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.” ~Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)
Idiot fat isn’t the problem.. Sugar is.. Educate yourself.
Rico: who you talking to, emanon? if so, yes! 🙂
Rico,
Ding, ding, ding…. you get a gold star for short comment straight the point.
Some things to consider:
1) When times are good, God stores excess energy as the “perfect food” Body fat, when times are bad your body switches over to consuming it’s own fat. with what ever vitamins and minerals that you can find.
Animal fat is “the perfect food.”
2) Sugar is poison, and the root of many modern diseases – especially excessive processed sugars. Go read a book called “sugar blues” which was written in the 60’s or 70’s. Most modern disease have reached epidemic levels once doctors and and well meaning geniuses started black balling clean animal fats and started putting processed sugar into “EVERYTHING”, probably because it is cheap, and it adds weight and calories. (increased profits)
Trans fats cause all of those. Lard is a saturated fat but has less than butter and no trans fats. Besides in a survival situation you will probably have to work hard enough to need some fat. Heart disease is a modern problem, mostly from being sedentary. Our ancestors ate lard but they worked hard to survive. And it works well for baked goods.
You should really learn correct nutrition before commenting on some thing you have absolutely no knowledge of, instead of regurgitating what the government has told you for so many years. Now go put your mask back on!
Lol- once people begin starving long term, lard becomes a nutrient because it keeping people from losing weight and being hungry. The human body will burn this item for calories.
These silly people who know nothing about difficult times have a lot to learn..
It doesn’t
In a SHTF situation, worrying about heart disease or heart attack is the last thing you will be doing!!! Your biggest worry will always be to have enough nutrition to survive on!
Are you an idiot?
You have never gone hungry.
You are a effing idiot. Lard is good for you. Seed oils destroy your mitochondria. You need to learn to think for yourself and stop listening propaganda machine. You probably don’t even know what I am talking about.
Your statements are ridiculous and obviously you have never been in a true survival situation ie war zone, combat, hurricanes and flooding. In a true survival situation … don’t worry you won’t have to worry about dying of heart disease. Absolutely ridiculousness. Mr Walton is trying to help give you the tools and the information that you may need to survive. In such an environment survival is minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. I learned a very long time ago in order to survive the unsurvivable. You have to allow yourself to think the unthinkable, which you obviously have not done. Thank you, Mr. Walton for your article and for sharing the things We as a people have long forgotten… self reliance, perseverance and thankfulness.
My grandma used nothing but lard for cooking, pie dough, or any other recipe for which you might use oil or crisco. She lived until 93 and was healthy to the end.
How long will caned lard keep
Sorry canned
I have been canning lard and bacon fat for only 4 years now and I just opened a new jar a few days ago and was as fresh as when I canned it in 2014. May grandmother was still using hers after 6 years. Hope that helps.
I can mine and keep it in the freezer. I’ve had some in there for a few years. But, the best way to do this is to slaughter a pig every fall so you only have what you need for a year. I’m working on that in my homestead endeavors. It’s hard to know how much of everything you need before you get it all in the house and start using it. We use about a pint of lard every 2 month so I need 6 pints for a year, but 1 pig gives us enough to do 18-20 pints. So we usually do it every 3 years. If we were in survival mode, I would probably use more of it and need that much every year because we are right now using other oils as well as the lard.
You will want to cube the pork fat fairly uniformly before rendering. Back and belly fat are wonderful to cook with, but if u want to bake with it , use the leaf lard from around the kidneys.
Not exactly a post about lard, but this video shows exactly where the best fat for ard comes from on the pig,
And, anyone who is a prepper or a homesteader can probably use a link to the best channel on you-tube for butchering meat.
=D
Not exactly a post about lard, but this video shows exactly where the best fat for ard comes from on the pig,
And, anyone who is a prepper or a homesteader can probably use a link to the best channel on you-tube for butchering meat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHGVdmmyWo
=D
We butcher our own pork and have the processing plan render the lard for us. We freeze it and it is WONDERFUL for cooking and baking.
Same here. Been doing it for many years. Cut it in 1″ or so cubes, put in crock pots (run 3 when rendering), ladle the melted fat off, strain thru cheesecloth, and let cool overnight. Put in 1 qt containers, put in freezer. Two pigs generally does us more than a year.
I grew up on the farm, in the fall we butchered hogs and neighbors hogs about 10-12 hogs a season All fat meat with skin we cooked in large iron kettles with wood fire until most lard was cooked out; then we poured it into a press squeezing all the lard out and made cakes of cracklins, also good eating, and stored cans of lard in the cool cellar sitting on brick floor. This was our lard for the year. This was before refrigerators, freezers, electricity, it never spoiled, molded and it maintained its flavor until the next butchering. I also had a Cousin who butchered January first every year, freezing snow or rain he butchered. I also helped. After graduation I worked one winter in the local slaughter house butchering hogs.
I remember helping my grandmother when we were kids. She had her big old black iron kettle sitting on a wood fire and being chased by my brother with the pig tail. But she would cook it and could skim the cracklins right off then and there while it was cooking. It was an all day thing for us to be there for, but I remember it well.
check with the slaughter houses or directly with the rendering plants – there’s your best $$$ per pound for rendered lard >>> especially if you’re willing to take it in a 5 gallon bucket …
While trichinosis has been mainly eliminated in the pork that is sold in this country, there is a high likelihood that bear meat will be infected with this parasite. Bear meat, before it is consumed must be thoroughly cooked. Most articles I have read recommend boiling the meat, throwing away the water the meat was boiled in and then further cooking the meat.
In just the last year or two I read an article in either Field & Stream or Outdoor Life in which a guide recounted the infection of a hunting party hunting in Canada, including the author, who had become infected with trichinosis because they failed to thoroughly cook the meat of the bear they had killed.
While his infection with the parasite was subdued, apparently it is never fully eliminated from the human body and so although he was over the effects of the initial infestation, he still carried the parasite in his body and had to guard against its reactivation.
Early settlers used bear fat and ate bear meat. I don’t know if the infestation of bear with trichinosis is a recent thing due to bears raiding garbage pits and garbage cans or if bear meat has historically been infested due to their habit of eating carrion.
The trichinosis parasite infests muscle tissue and it may be that because it infests muscle tissue and not fat tissue, rendered bear fat is safe to eat. I don’t know enough about the issue to be able to make a factual statement. I only know that bear meat can be infested with trichinosis and so it must be consumed with caution. I believe that the temperature at which bear meat is rendered is not high enough to kill the trichinosis parasite. Again, my knowledge is limited. If you think you might be consuming bear meat and rendering its fat, you might want to do further research into the matter.
Unless the laws has changed bear meat is the only game animal that you do not need to bring out the 4 quarters in Alaska. That is because of the possibility of being infected with Trichinosis. I left in 1971, so that may no longer be accurate.
One of the guys I work with, his brother in law died from eating bear meat. It seems that bear meat in the spring time has a lot of toxins due to their hibernation. If you are going to eat any bear products it is probably better in the summer to fall months for safety reasons.
Bear fat goes rancid fairly quickly which is why it’s not usually recommended for cooking.
LCC: I used to cut meat. All animals can carry trich. Pastured hogs carry it. We cannot export raw pork to Europe because of it. I know deer living in poor soil areas like coal country in PA, low calcium and low phosphorus, will eat bones of dead animals. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/deer-caught-gnawing-human-bones-first-time-180963178/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20study%2C%20ungulates,with%20a%20rectangular%20cross%20section.
Deer eat mice, as well, and mice carry it. https://www.outdoorhub.com/stories/2013/09/09/the-meat-eating-habits-of-deer/
Trich is a round worm, but because domesticated animals are medicated for round worms, it’s gotten rare in hogs and cattle. Watering from copper a few times a year kills it, as well as pasturing animals with a little lespedeza in the pasture mix. A little, because it has tannin, too much of tannin prevents absorption of protein. niio
https://honest-food.net/on-trichinosis-in-wild-game/#:~:text=The%20actual%20temperature%20that%20kills,t%20a%20guarantee%20of%20that.
I wonder if Ivermectin can cure trich? Since Covid, it is getting out what a Wonder Drug Ivermectin is for many things. Research over the years has been buried so Pharma can sell you new expensive drugs. Pharma is not concerned about healing people…only money.
Spike: I think it’s only good for a few viral infections. Trich is nothing to mess with, it causes a lot of pain, can cause blindness and damage to organs. Most people and animals can have it for years and not know it. As far as I know, the main sign is small spikes of pain in the muscles.
Anything with copper is good for most internal parasites like trich and even liver flukes, something modern meds can’t get rid of without harming the patient, as well. Use copper with caution. When treating tapeworms in the dogs, one old copper penny in their water for 3 days was always enough to expel the worms. Longer, and we risked copper poisoning. And, a pint of yogurt for each one after the penny was removed and the water dumped because copper kills all bacteria and fungus in the gut.
Agreed about big pharm. That’s why they have to have months of testing even before use on humans. they killed too many on the road to wealth. niio
I completely agree they are actually even saying that it is a cure to cancer. Sickness equals money to big Pharma and the government.
If you mix fats from different animals (assuming infestation is not an issue) does this change the shelf life of the finished lard?
Damien; Not all fats store the same. Mixing them is not recommended.
I own a small butcher shop in Nebraska. Dirt raised hogs usually offer the most back fat. If you can use a half or whole hog a year ask your butcher to save the fat “and grind it” making it so much more easy, quicker and you can separate all the fat from the proteins. Far more efficient even in a crock pot. We render lard on request for any hog customers or prep it for DIY
I do my lard in the crock pot from the pasture raised hogs that my neighbor grows. It’s easier and you have less scorching or burning of the product. I struggle with what to do with the cracklins though. We’re working on raising our own pigs soon. And I’m going to teach a couple friends how to slaughter a hog soon as well. I did it with my family for most of my childhood and teen years. In the last 5 years I haven’t done it, but I’m eager to butcher my own again.
cracklins make excellent dog treats. They can also be mixed in with bone meal, diatomatious earth, sweet potato, and non-grain fiber (dried grass, etc) to make healthy dog biscuits.
When I was a kid they made an excellent treat for ME.
My dogs DO love them. They will beg for some if they can smell them at all. I have been putting it in eggs and using it as a bacon replacer in recipes that I can mix it in. Nobody seems to notice. Although if I mention it to my husband he complains that there is no meat on it. He still eats it though.
If the cracklings aren’t Rick hard, you can grind them to make a low carbohydrate breading for meats.
Just because something has high calories or carbs doesn’t make it some semi lost survival food. It’s lard. Literally half the southern United States has it.
Lab: How to make it is lost for 99% of people. When was the last time you cleaned a hog? niio
I can most of my lard in small 1/2 – 1 pint jars so am not opening a large jar and exposing it to possible contamination. The small jars are easier to to handle and just leave on the counter next to the stove. I don’t have enough solar panels to also run my fridge or chest freezer so I am concerned with mass food loss when the power goes out.
Thomas: Same here, but, a homemade solar dryer will take care of most things. It sits on 4 legs with a 6 foot long sheet metal heat collector running into the bottom. The ‘cage’ is in sections (like a bee hive). bottom and upper opening of the heat collector are coved with 1/4 welded wire and metal fly screen. Sections are covered like that, too. There’s a tarp that covers the sections on windy days. Pieces for the top and heat collector are used, as well. In summer, the collector can push heat well over 130 F and that’s not good for the food to be heated like that for long. It like overcooking something. niio
What about storing commercial lard off shelf at grocery store? If unopened can you keep it for long periods? I’m not in position to render my own but can buy lard.
That lard will still go rancid after a while, even unopened, unless you have a good, cool place to store it. Since the kind I buy does not contain preservatives, I store it in the refrigerator. There are some brands that do contain preservatives that will probably last longer. Don’t know how you feel about such preservatives, but I try to limit them as much as possible.
The lard can probably be repackaged into jars and processed in a canner but I haven’t tried it yet. Not really sure how to do that, i.e., how long to process, pressure or water bath, etc. However, that would be expensive since, where I live, a 1 pound tub runs between $3 and $4 each whether they contain preservative or not.
I have a 5 gallon bucket of Field lard in the freezer.
It cost about $25 years ago.
Now?? A 4 lb. carton is $13..so do the math.
Great investment.
The Mexican butcher where I got my pork fat for my experiment in making lard told me when we were discussing it that he didn’t buy off-the-shelf lard because of the chemicals they put in it. He preferred to make his own lard using the fat from the shop. He also said that to his taste it didn’t taste the same as the lard he made from pure pork fat.
I am sure he selected only the best cuts of fat. After all, he was a man who had worked in butchering for a long time and knew what fat he wanted to make the best lard.
He told me he only used lard in his cooking, that he didn’t use anything else. I took that information as coming right from the pig’s belly, so to speak.
For the pressure canning part of the article, I wish the author had supplied a little more information; is it 100 minutes for pints and 120 for quarts (~0.5 litre and ~1 litre if you use metric).
Also, I’ve heard more than one canner say if you want to can sausage, it’s best to refrain from adding sage to it as the sage turns bitter. I’ve not canned sausage so do not know from experience if this be true. This does seem to contrast though, with the author’s suggestion of adding a sage leaf on the top.
I’ve rendered lard a couple times. The cracklings, which are the bits that turn brown, make for excellent snacks, or if you don’t like them, the birds certainly do!
What else do you do with your cracklins? I need some more ideas. Thanks. 🙂
I use them mostly as snacks. You can also use them in the same way you would bacon bits, so as salad or potato toppers would be good. You can add to omelettes or home fries.
Lard is wonderful. Best pie crust and biscuits imaginable. A bit of that bacon fat to season gravy and you’re on your way to great eating. I actually eat little fat except by choice or planning. I grew up vegetarian and even oils were not high on the list of important things to eat.
Later discovered meat and milk fats were natural and health… On the food lists for diabetics. I’m not Not diabetic but I don’t handle fats too well b u t a bit of real butter, sour cream, half and half over slices fruit, butter on toast… Are all wonderful.
Nix the trans fats.
Canning some lard makes perfect sense. I kept a coffee can of bacon grease by the stove for years. My mother in law had cans and cans put away in bottom cupboard shelves. I think it would have kept forever.
Because in Tennessee, you can’t make cornbread without bacon grease!!
My mother, who passed in 2011 at 95, lived in an orphanage when she was a little girl because her mother couldn’t put enough food on the table for all eight children during the depression of the 30’s. Mom told me she remembered sitting on the front steps of the orphanage with a slice of bread that had lard spread on it. She said it was a treat. …I’ve never tried that, but I don’t think I was ever as hungry as my mom might’ve been in that orphanage.
My grandparents told me stories of eating that same thing. I think it was just a butter replacement sometimes. My grandparents had a small farm to raise all of their kids through those hard years. I can’t imagine having that many mouths to feed and no money. Creative food planning for sure. I need to work on my meal planning skills.
Leaf lard is the best lard to use for baking. it’s found near the pig’s kidneys. it’s got a more delicate flavor. hide lard is used for frying food.
I had an off the grid fiesta with some Mexican friends a couple years ago,they built a fire ring out of stones and got a good mesquite fire going, charred serranno peppers and tomatoes and made that into a sauce. Then they broke out a big copper kettle and set it in the fire and put 2 of those big cubes of lard in. They had killed a hog and cut it into fist size chunks,once the lard was boiling hard they started cooking those chunks of hog till it was golden brown, pulled the meat off the bone and shredded it and we made tacos on corn tortillas somebody’s wife had made with that smoking hot pepper sauce. Never had a better meal, squatting in the dirt with a bunch of illiterate rancheros drinking ice cold Buds and howling at the moon.
Lot of recent studies saying lard is good for you, don’t ever think you have the final answer to a question, that’s how doctors and lawyers end up so ignorant.
75.00$ for gas or electric per caner full,seems high to me.
Your brain is almost 100 % fat. Mothers milk is very high in fat content for this very reason. Brain health requires it !
YOUR BODY NEEDS FAT ! Especially when performing hard labor. I have a friend that has eaten bacon and eggs for breakfast everyday of his life, he is 75 years old and ZERO heart problems.
how do i stop getting notifications! yikes, there are a lot of people commenting!
It’s pork fat. It’s not survival food. It’s an ingredient to flavor food. God help you if you eat straight up animal fat. Disgusting.
Haven’t you ever heard of people spreading lard on bread just like butter and eating it? My dad, did during the Depression, because he didn’t have butter. When you’re hungry, you’ll eat just about anything, even things you would otherwise dream of eating.
It’s used like any shortening, not for eating with a spoon, anymore than you would eat straight up Crisco. It also has vitamins like D and K that are essential to good health. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it until you’ve thoroughly researched it – or eaten home made home fries sauteed in bacon fat!
It’s used like any shortening, not for eating with a spoon, anymore than you would eat straight up Crisco. It also has vitamins like D and K that are essential to good health. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it until you’ve thoroughly researched it – or eaten home made home fries sauteed in bacon fat!
Oops! Sorry for the duplicate – laggy computer!
Any time that you are on a low calorie diet your body is eating it’s own natural fat reserves… why would you think that the body has a problem with processing natural fats?
Natural fats are your body’s high calorie reserve food of choice.
I was raised by grandparents that lived rural Texas during the depression. Lard was used for so much more than for just food…just for those younger preppers to know. Putting myself thru nursing school way back…I worked in a dietitian department. In my memory I saw some changes that I see as a pretty direct link to our obesity problem in the US. One of those changes was going to hydrogenated AND veg oils instead of using lard and/or tallow to fry foods in. Try this experiment. FRY your kids a big pan of french fries…IN LARD. Another day…FRY your kids a pan with veg oil hydrogenated or not.. and see how fast each kid fills up. Lard in particular satiates the appetite…AND therefore, you tend to eat less. Pigs in the US back before the 50’s…were essentially raised for the FAT they produced. It was used for machinery and simply things like allowing a screw to enter the wood by hand driving so much easier. In the late 60’s and 70’s the commercial pork started getting less fatty. Back then, I believed the hype…and I stopped using lard but as I’ve gotten older…and with more information under my belt…I see society is so much more obese due to the food police…and LARD is NOT the enemy and I use it AND BUTTER because I use LESS of it than processed foods and feel more satiated. IF your prepped Lard seems like it has turned, and it will do so, depending on long term storage, it is NOT a waste. You can use it for candles and my fav is lye soap. I’ve done it for decades, although, I’m not a fan of candles…they can serve a purpose. IF you have tons of salty bacon fat that smells off…deodorize it and make soap out of it. Search that and you will see there is a way to use OLD lard even if it smells off.
Oh a lighter note..IF your a nursing mother…and become engorged…find someone with freshly rendered lard and slather it all over your breasts. You will find relief and milk will start coming. I didn’t believe my grandpa (who raised hogs) but was so desperate I did it. IT worked, fast. But he said it had to be fresh, not stored or store bought. Just saying. Lard can make all sorts of skin remedies in a survival situation.
My in-laws who used lard for all baking lived to 98 and 101 years old without dementia or Alzheimer’s! Mom’s pie crust was the best! Pie crust with butter is amazing too! When I first met them, I could not believe they used lard but then I got more into health. We never gave up butter and eggs and have had our own free range chickens all but maybe 12 years of our 46 year marriage. We are on no medications at 67 and 68, have good blood pressure and don’t even know what our cholesterol is! My husband still weighs the same as High School and wears the same size pants! Us and our 7 grown kids don’t have obesity problems and are all pretty energetic. We all like to dance!
We have raised sheep for meat and I rendered all the tallow. I could not believe they had so much fat on grass, some hay and apples! Lamb tallow really fills you up fast, is so satisfying and tasty and you don’t get hungry again for a long time. I have that stored. I also make soap out of every fat I can get my hands on, even bacon grease! I have used venison, any veggie oils, beef, chicken, turkey, and coconut oil in my soaps. My soap is the best at washing stains out of clothes and keeping your skin soft, even chapped winter hands!
I have had to rediscover this myself after all that old wisdom was lost!
Leslie,
Your comment really opened my eyes to the possibilities, besides food, of lard.
Thank you for your comment. 🙂
Hi , Leslie , Iwould love more recipes and and information from you on what you do and make . I’m starting the process of wanting to make soap, since I make deodorant . Iwould love your ideas to further my knowledge . thanks so much.
Asking questions are in fact fastidious thing if you are not understanding something
completely, except this piece of writing presents
pleasant understanding even.
So I can my lard, what then is the shelf life, stored properly?
I have a lot of lard put back. It is great to eat on toast just like butter.
I had rather use lard & butter knowing that it is not 90% toxins & die tomorrow than live 20 years & die eaten alive by cancers
Why put a sage leaf on top of it?
Salt. Buy it in the big 25lb blocks at Tractor supply or your county co-op/feed store…I know it says for livestock use only but salt is just basically salt. I feed the salt/mineral block type to my bees(dissolved and mixed with simple sugar syrup in the winter. It ain’t gonna hurt ya!
My grandma told me she would cook lard with a little flour in a pan, adding salt and pepper to make gravy and eat on her bread. She always used bacon grease in her cooking and her food turned out delicious. I save all my bacon grease too, and it makes everything taste divine! I have rendered lard but I didn’t know I could can it. Thank you for the instructions.
It is just like it was foretold.
You people are not dumb. You are German Shepard smart, but you are not Rottweiler smart, and you are not even close to monkey smart.
But being what you are you have a limited VISION.. You have no true history.
You are adrift, and that was all planned.
You refuse to give up your “world news”… surely, they wouldn’t never lied to us it is the world speaking. They can’t control the news of the entire world…. can they????
The bankers own the world… get used to it.
And like a monkey with his hand in a trap you refuse to give up that banana…
Good luck with all of that.
But wait, what does all of this have to do with the discussion at hand?
It doesn’t……
It has to do with you preparedness.
If you have no clue what is really going on today, then how can you prepare for the future?
Best way to store fat is pemmican. Pemmican is dried fruit and vegetables packed in casing with melted fat poured over them, then smoked. smoked in a smoker, smokehouse, or smoke alcove attached to a chimney, not your pipe, Joe Biden 🙂
We buy pork and beef fat, then added enough liquid smoke to cover it, and after three days fry it for imitation bacon. The grease is called smoked fat and once had a higher sale value than good butter.
If you want good fat, healthy fat low in LDL cholesterol, buy range/pastured animals or meat from them.Like the saying goes, Bossy got 4 stomachs and needs to use each one every day to stay healthy.Grain for animals is like candy for kids, less is better but some is needed. niio
I eat all the butter I can, I take a large potato wash and scrub it, boil it until a tooth pick goes in easy all the way, I have (1) quarter butter open and ready, the potato is very hot, I add slices of butter then add a good pinch of my solar salt and some pepper and mash with a fork, it is really good.
I put (4) tablespoons of fresh pressed coconut oil in my (7) grain cereal for breakfast add fresh blackberries or blue berries blended to a liquid for breakfast. Then I have (3) 3 1/2 minute eggs in 1/3 stick butter with a pinch of my solar salt and pepper, all this with cold milk while taking my natural supplements.
I refer to solar salt, the name is Sal do Mar contains 84 Minerals AND our body must be nourished with 84 minerals because GOD made man from the dust of the earth, Genesis 3; then how many minerals is the earth made of???—84 minerals.
This salt is not expensive, I whole sale at $5.00 lb.. If you are missing any minerals then illness of some kind will have a way to build. It is the ONLY salt with 84 minerals. Big Pharma makes Patent synthetic minerals used in drugs; they are not allowed to use anything. natural
Back on the farm 1930 -40s Dad had a wooden barrel of salt and we used it for curing meat, table salt, it was this natural salt, I don’t know where he got it because he had it before I was born. We fed it to all the animals in their feed.
When I was a kid my grandpa would talk of his life when he was a child growing up, and then as a young man during the depression. He spoke very fondly of lard sandwiches.The sandwiches were made with home made bread, lard, and on cold days his mom would put on extra lard and sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon. He said that his lunch box was a small lard can, round like a bucket, with a handle and a press on metal lid. Those days almost every one knew how to grow a garden , can food, bake, it wasn’t a hobby or a past time, it was how folks survived. Very few people have these skills anymore. I always hear about SHTF but the fact is when the SHTF most folks will just starve.
a little something from an old Navy Seal.
“…in all that you do in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.” ~Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)
My grandmother, born in 1901, used lard for everything. She cooked from scratch. She chewed tobacco, and dipped snuff. Even took a drink if she was sick. She lived to be 101 years, 7 months old.
Cracklins can be added to cornbread batter and baked.
It’s a very old Southern recipe. Hydrogenating shortening extends it’s shelf life. It also creates TRANSFATS. You can now buy organic lard. It’s rendered the way people did it 200 years ago. There are two types of lard. Ordinary lard is rendered from a pig’s hide. Leaf lard is rendered from fat found near the pig’s kidneys. It has a more delicate flavor. So it was used to make bread and pie crusts. hide lard was used for deep frying.
jonescrusher
Thank you. That was very informative. I knew about the hydrogenated oils being unhealthy, but the rest I had no clue about the rest. The store lard being hydrogenated has been enough for me to not use it. If you could pass on more info on the organic lard that would be much appreciated.
Mother Earth News Magazine Sells a great LARD cookbook( I need to replace my copy).It has wonderful recipes in it.
Bacon can be raw packed in canning jars. After being pressure canned; it can be stored for several YEARS. Store the jars in a box. Keep it in a pantry that won’t freeze or get too hot. Watch your store ads for bacon being on sale. Then buy it and pressure can it
My grandmother was born in 1901. She used lard almost all her life. She never had heart disease or any other than very mild diabetes for a few years, and she broke her ankle fishing one time. She lived to be 101 years, 7 months old. Did I mention that she ate mostly pork, when she ate meat. Maybe twice a week.
Just a thought – sage takes on a horrendous flavor during canning. Save your lard / tallow and use a bay leaf or nothing at all. Since completely switching over to growing/raising almost all of our foods we eat, my health has improved immensely! Enough so, I’m off 14 different types of medications – and after switching to lard and tallow, my high cholesterol is not more!
Carrie: Years ago, we went gluten free. Mom moved in with us, and did not like it. But, after about 10 days, no more sign of diabetes, cholesterol was low-good range, and her sugar stabilized at 120. She started to party, again, weddings and so on. A few times she ate stuff with gluten in it and wound up in the hospital. She learned. While on the ‘diet’ she ate pretty much what she wanted and no problems at all. Now, I’m trying to stick to a carnivore diet because grain makes me sick. No sign of diabetes, but other problems. And no LDL cholesterol. niio
For us at home in the 50’s, we did not have a big enough freezer. My dad worked for an uncle of his helping on the farm. For his help, dad was given 3 pigs, a half of a beef. Mom would render the lard, they would buy boxes of pork fat extra. The pigs were butchered, all the loins, pork chops would be fried up and along with the rendered lard, would be put into a #30 crock. First a layer of lard then, the fried pork were layed in the lard then more lard and so on until the crock was full. Then a round plywood cover, that fit inside the crock, wrapped in plastic would be place on top of the lard and meat. And a couple heavy cement block were placed on top of the board. The weight would push out any air bubbles. It would “fart”, as us kids would call it. Thus creating an airless container. As mom would want to fix a meal with pork chops, us kids would go down the basement and take out as many pork chops or loins that she told us to get, and always a scoop of the lard to finish heating them up for the meal. We always had lard on the counter beside the stove. Both rendered lard and bacon grease to use for frying eggs and such. The flavors were the best!! So much different than what we are used to today. Never worried about so called health issues they talk about today. Both mom and dad lived to be close to 90. And us kids, 5 of us, burnt every calorie up by being outside everyday playing!! Totally different than today’s kids!!
Vern: when we cut firewood in the fall, Dad always looked for a few good, straight oaks for barrels. some went for sauerkraut, some to cure meat, some for other things Uncle Dimey did after dark in his cabin on the mountain. (cough 🙂
Mom liked Uncle Dimey’s used barrels for curing meat. After she found out he was teaching me to run the still, she threatened to torch his shack. Nah, she wouldn’t have. 50 years before that, revenues blew up a still on the other side of the hollow and managed for burn down a few hundred acres of good timber. They still came back a few times a year to make sure no one was using the spring up there. they never did look across the hollow. Dad kept hogs and beef cattle up there. niio