The Best Tallow of 2023
Whether you’re using tallow for skin care, or deep frying delicious goodies in your tallow (instead of gut-wrecking industrial seed oils that currently constitute the status quo), there is really only one tallow being produced that could be considered to be the best of 2023.
Here are five reasons that Folsom Point Nutrition’s 100% Grass-Fed & Finished Bison Tallow is the best available choice for tallow and is set apart from the rest.
1) 100% Grass-Fed & Finished
Compared to the alternative, grass-fed and finished animals are clearly better. This is especially the case when we’re talking about fat, or fatty cuts of meat! So in the case of tallow, grass-fed is of utmost importance.
Fat is very nutrient dense, because so many vitamins are fat-soluble. These vitamins tend to accumulate in the fat of the animal, until we consume those vitamins for our own body’s use. So, the fat is where the good stuff is…..right?
Antibiotics, xenoestrogens, pesticides, herbicides, and other pharmaceutical compounds commonly used in ranching bioaccumulate in the fat of animals just as much as the vitamins that the animals eat. These compounds are fat-soluble. That means that they may not be present at all in lean muscle tissue, but may be present in rich amounts in fatty tissue if they’re used on the ranch or animal in question.
Feed quality also greatly impacts quality of fat on an animal. Grain-fed or finished animals routinely test higher for omega 6 fatty acids and have a lower omega 3:6 ratio than their grass-fed and finished counterparts. This ratio can often be used as a correlative measure for overall systemic inflammation. In short—we are healthier individuals if we have higher omega 3:6 intake in our diets, generally speaking. Eating fat from grass-fed animals contributes to this ratio in a more beneficial way than grain-fed animals.
So, fat has the potential to be nutrient dense, but it also has the potential to be very high in pesticide residue, antibiotics, and all the other yucky nonsense that we DON’T want in our food. It’s really important that whether we’re using fat or tallow for skin care or food, that it comes from grass-fed animals from clean ranches!
Our tallow is 100% grass-fed and finished, and is 3rd party audited and certified to be such by the American Grass-fed Association (AGA).
2) regenerative — no, really regenerative
“Regenerative” is a word that gets thrown around as a trendy buzzword, to make one’s farm or ranch sound hip or with it. The truth is that truly regenerative ranching is a fantastic model for ranching and food production (I won’t go into details here, but here’s a brief blog post on what it is and why it’s important). However, it is also a term that is completely unregulated by any authority or regulatory agency. Therefore, it can be used without any repercussions for products that are not regenerative whatsoever. For example, the most deplorable of factory-farmed animals could be labeled as “regenerative” and there isn’t anything anyone could do to tell them they’re wrong!
Because of this odd gap in regulation (I consider it odd, because the USDA and FDA seem to overregulate everything else for small businesses), it is imperative that customers inquire with their rancher, butcher, grocer, or whoever else they’re supplied by about the specifics of agricultural practices. Only through 3rd party auditing or objective qualifications can we really know if a food or ranch is regenerative.
Most of the bison used in this tallow are certified regenerative by the Allan Savory Institute, as well as certified to meet animal welfare standards by the Global Animal Partnership. This particular ranch is also certified to be bird-friendly land by the Audubon Society—it is truly bison integrated into the local ecology rather than a bison-producing-factory-model—as our food and animals on this Earth are meant to be!
Ask your current tallow producer if they have any regenerative qualifications like our tallow does.
3) low-temperature rendered
Temperature matters! Tallow can be wet-rendered or dry-rendered, and rendered at all kinds of temperatures. When rendered at high temperatures, tallow and other fats (like lard) can be oxidized. The oxidization process damages the fat on the molecular level, making it difficult for our bodies to assimilate, and therefore inflammatory. High temperatures can also denature proteins in the tissue, also making them inflammatory. High temperatures can also destroy nutrients and Vitamin compounds. All in all, rendering and cooking at high temperatures can produce damaging and inflammatory compounds that are never in the food to begin with!
That’s why we render our bison tallow at under 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This patient process ensures that proteins remain intact and are not denatured, and the rich saturated fatty acids in our tallow avoid oxidization or other damage.
Eating or applying these inflammatory compounds to the skin is not a good idea. Make sure your tallow is low-temperature rendered like ours!
4) bison-based, small-batch, small business
Most of the tallow being used these days is from beef (hopefully it’s grass-fed and finished!). However, there is a great case to be made for using bison tallow instead. Bison is better than beef for myriad reasons (links needed), and this is even moreso the case for tallow.
It is illegal to use any steroids in bison, and the animals are so difficult to round up and “work” for ranchers that they aren’t given the same level of pharmaceutical treatment of cattle. Therefore, we could logically assume that bison will have lower levels of toxins of any/all kinds in their fat (where toxins and vitamins both bioaccumulate) than beef. Obviously, whether you’re cooking or using tallow for skin care, you do not want to use tallow or fat with high levels of toxins or pharmaceuticals meant for animals!
Additionally, bison consistently have higher omega 3:6 ratios in their fat than beef do. In fact, even a recent study at South Dakota State University showed that even grain-fed bison have higher omega 3:6 ratios in their fat than grass-fed beef does—a bit mind-boggling! So, bison fat will have lower levels of toxins, higher omega 3 fats, both of which are good ideas for human consumption.
Bison fat has a proven track record—bison fat has been used by humans for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years, both used internally as a food as well as applied externally as a topical for skin care. Beef tallow is better than nothing, but certainly not the best.
Finally, bison are inherently small-batch animals, especially our 100% grass-fed & finished ones. While a bison can weigh as much as 2,000lbs, we harvest an average of only 5lbs of raw fat per animal. This makes 100% grass-fed bison tallow only slightly less rare than unicorn meat!
Because of our high standards for animals as well as their lean nature, we are only able to produce a couple thousand jars of this wonderful bison tallow annually.
5) all made in the usa—even the packaging
We’re always proud to make our products 100% in the USA. Our bison are born and ranched here, raised and harvested here, and their fat is rendered here. Even the jars we put the tallow into are made in the USA, and yes, we do go out of our way to make sure that’s the case. But, we go out of our way to produce the best quality product in every respect, so it should come as no surprise.
We support small American businesses at every opportunity, even when it costs more. The reasons for this are many and deep, but the short version is that we love this country and are always trying to make it better for future generations.
Key takeaways
Tallow used for food or skin care should be 100% Grass-Fed & Finished
Regenerative ranching should really be the norm at this point, and a lot of companies that claim to be “regenerative” actually have no such qualifications. Look for tallow with regenerative 3rd party certification(s)!
Tallow should be rendered at low temperatures for best and healthiest use
Bison and other wild-game species make the best tallow
Small-batch production means supporting small family businesses and ranches
Our product is all produced in the USA—even our jars and labels!
If you want to be eating or using the best tallow available, the choice is clearly Folsom Point Nutrition’s 100% Grass-Fed & Finished, Regeneratively-Ranched Bison Tallow