It’s creamy. It is a type of saturated fat. And according to a multitude of influencers of lifestyle and well-being, it is “good” for your body and your skin.
Beef tallow, the fat that remains after meat is boiled, has become the last craze to take on line online, some creators praising it like a product of skin care and others calling it healthier alternative to “seed oils” like canola and cartame oil.
Secretary of Health and Social Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also promoted tallow. While eating fries and a hamburger with a steak n tremor during an interview with Fox News last week, he praised the chain of restaurants to cook with fat rather than with vegetable oil. (HHS and the White House did not respond to the request for comments from NBC News.)
The diet and skin care worlds are popular social media niches that can quickly travel from fashionable ideas that go from reasonably effective to bizarre. The craze for tallow seems to be one of the rare times their content focuses on the same product.
But some dermatologists and nutrition experts have declared that they do not recommend incorporating high levels of beef tallow in diets or skin care. On the skin, a dermatologist said that tallow could cause acne rather than eliminate it. For cooking, some nutritionists have said that beef tif can even be worse than seed oils.
“Beef tallow does not deserve a halo of health or devil horns,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, in an email.
Suddy touted as an alternative to oil
In mid-January, Steak ‘N Shake announced that he would pivot the cooking of fries with a beef.
In his interview with one of the chain’s locations, Kennedy said that the Americans “poison us and that this comes mainly from these ultra -proro -resident food”.
“President Trump wants us to have a radical transparency and that we are inciting businesses like this to change traditional ingredients for beef tallow,” he added, before biting in a double cheeseburger and fries.
He also praised the kitchen with a tallow, Sharing an Instagram publication in November To make him “tweering” for Thanksgiving.
Kennedy’s conviction that the use of tallow could help “make America healthy” echoes an assertion that has spread to social media on seed oils. Many believe because seed oils are often found in processed foods, such as fries and packaged desserts, animal fats like tallow and butter are healthier. Tiktok videos Discuss users’ reasons to avoid seed oils have gathered Hundreds of thousands of views. (A Tiktok spokesperson did not respond to a request for comments.)
But Lisa Young, nutritionist and auxiliary professor in Nyu, said that the oil itself was not necessarily the problem.
“People blame seed oils when this is not toxic,” she said. “It is the sugar and salt of the junk food they use.”
Compared to tallow, seed oils are supposed to be “best fats”, according to Young, because They are unsaturated. The saturated fats, on the other hand, generally come from products of animal origin and have proven to increase cholesterol, which can in turn increase the risk of heart disease.
The tallow is “probably healthier than ultra -revised foods rich in starch, sugar and salt – but it is less healthy than olive oil, soy oil, canola oil or nuts of nuts or avocados,” said Mozaffarian.
Many seed oil skeptics indicate a report of two types of fatty acids in oils – omega -6 and omega -3 – which, according to them, are linked to inflammation. But Christopher Gardner, Director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Previously told NBC News These levels of particular types of unsaturated fats are a trivial concern when it comes to assessing the health of a food.
“This is not an important problem. It doesn’t kill anyone. The fries could be. Fast food could be, ”said Gardner. “But the oil in which you fry the fries is not the country’s main concern at the moment.”
Young people also warned against the thought of any source of fat as well.
“I think that if you have a little beef tallow or a little seed oils, it will not be a problem,” she said. “The problem is when you do it in excess, and when people think that something is good for you, they think it is better.”
The risk of rubbing the tallow on the skin
Tiktok videos on the use of beef tallow on the skin – circulating on the platform since last year – often show that users applying the product as a moisturizing and acne treatment, praising the results.
“In two weeks, my acne was gone. My skin was so much younger, more bouncing and more brilliant, ”said a user in a video Posted in May which has since been seen more than a million times.
Some influencers say in their videos that they make an beef tallow from zero. Others say they bought it before promoting or promoting products in which beef tallow is an ingredient.
However, a 2024 review of approximately 150 published articles On beef tallow as a cosmetic product, did not find any skin goods services. The examination revealed that the use of beef tif has irritated the skin of certain people but had no negative effect on others.
Sophie Greenberg, dermatologist at the Tribeca Skin Center in New York, said that the beef tif operating in the same way as petroleum jelly or coconut oil – its oily properties hold moisture.
“It will be fatty on your skin, but it will lock everything below,” said Greenberg. “The best of cases, if you have really dry skin and your skin barrier needs something to get it, it would be useful.”
However, she suggested using one of the other products instead and said the beef tallow “could cause acne rashes”.
“This is not something I recommend in my practice,” she said.
For those who want to experiment with beef tallow, Greenberg has recommended to stick to the products that include it as ingredient alongside traditional skin care products such as beeswax, jojoba oil, glycerin and hyaluronic acid.
Connie Yang, dermatologist of practice P Frank MD in New York, said that some people were attracted to tallow because they consider it more natural than some other ingredients found in skin care products.
“Natural is not always better,” she said. “Things like poison is natural – does not mean that it is good for your skin.”