The fast food restaurant Steak ‘n Shake announced on Friday that it will begin cooking its french fries in beef tallow by the end of February.
“If veg oil broke your heart, our tallow will make you fall in love again,” the company said in a post on X.
Steak ‘n Shake’s chief supply chain officer Chris Ward said fries were originally cooked in beef tallow “centuries ago” and that the switch back will help the fries “achieve the highest quality and best taste.”
“Steak ‘n Shake has long been famous for its shoestring fries—and it will now fry them in the best way possible,” the company said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the second Trump administration, has proposed to launch the “Make America Healthy Again” policy if confirmed and has criticized the use of seed oils, which were thought to be a healthful replacement for saturated animal fats.
Kennedy said in an October 2024 post on X that it has since been discovered that seed oils are “one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic.”
“Interestingly enough, this began to drastically rise around the same time fast food restaurants switched from beef tallow to seed oils in their fryers,” Kennedy said.
From 1940 to the 1990s, McDonald’s used beef tallow to cook its French fries; then it began to phase out the use of animal fat in favor of seed oil, Kennedy noted.
Fast food has since become synonymous with unhealthy, but it doesn’t have to be, Kennedy said.
“People who enjoy a burger with fries on a night out aren’t to blame, and Americans should have every right to eat out at a restaurant without being knowingly poisoned by heavily subsidized seed oils,” he said. “It’s time to Make Frying Oil Tallow Again.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, meets with senators on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 18, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, saturated fat intake “should be limited to less than 10 percent of calories per day by replacing them with unsaturated fats, particularly polyunsaturated fats.”
According to the guidelines, this can be accomplished by cooking with variations of seed oils, such as canola and palm.
However, Kennedy has argued that saturated fats have been unfairly “demonized for decades” as a result of “flawed science and massive PR campaigns by companies purveying ultra-processed seed oils, food additives, and high fructose corn syrup.”
“Today, finally, people are waking up to the fact that we were lied to,” he said.
