1. What is tallow acid? Tallow acid is a fatty acid derived from animal fat, mostly beef fat. It is found in a variety of products, especially cosmetics, soaps, detergents and even in cooking. A fatty acid, tallow acid is formed by the breaking down of fat. It is formed by what is technically termed as oleochemistry, the process by which body fat is converted into fatty acids. A brief of tallow acid formation process: Hydrolysis is performed on beef tallow with the appropriate temperature and pressure to split the fats into crude forms. Then, the formed crude acids are purified by distillation and then saturated by increasing the melting point or hydrogenation. Fractional distillation is used to identify fatty acids of desired chain length.

2. Tallow as fatty acid: Though many talk ill of tallow acid, it has to be remembered that tallow acid is a fatty acid that contains a lot of saturated fats. It is a great source of energy and helps in addition of healthy fat content to the body when used in cooking. It is also one of the harder oils (like coconut oil, olive oil and ghee) and owing to its high boiling point, it can be used for deep frying. McDonald’s used beef tallow oil to cook French fries before they shifted to vegetable oil.

3. Tallow acid – uses: Uses of tallow acid are multifarious. A few common uses are tallow acid is used in products like bar soap, body wash, liquid hand soap and other rich and creamy lather soaps. Sometimes manufacturers use it in detergents, fabric softeners and other cleaning substances, insect repellents, germicides, insecticides, lubricants, water treatment agents and pigment modification products. Tallow acid is a great preservative which is used as an addictive in food or other chemical packaging.

4. Tallow acid and toxicity: Research in the recent times have suggested that Tallow acid maybe toxic to aquatic life of fish and plants. The Canadian Environmental Domestic Substance List terms tallow acid as a low human health product owing to its environmentally hazardous properties. However, in  2006, the United States FDA Food Addictive status announced that tallow acid is safe when used in limited amounts in human food. So far nothing potentially harmful has been reported in tallow acid.

5. When is tallow acid hazardous? According to the cosmetic safety database, it is confirmed that tallow acid can be hazardous when used in its raw form. However, enough studies have not been done to confirm the safety of use of tallow acid in cosmetic products.

Historical Timeline of Beef: The history of beef is quite long, starting from the times of Columbus in the year of 1493. From that era, the cow has come to grow into a huge business. From cowboy marketing, American farmers moved to expansive realms that made beef tallow and used it for soaps, candles, cooking, leather and other industries. Then, came the McDonald’s, the hamburgers and all the obesity-causing, multi-million dollar fast food chains. Most of these chains, including the McDonald’s, used beef tallow as oil, the ancient harder cooking oil for deep frying.

Below is a brief history of beef in America that outlines just the important milestones:

Columbus brings cattle: Christopher Columbus was the first one to introduce cattle to the Western Hemisphere in 1493. However, Hernando Cortez was the first one to bring cattle to North America in 1519. With the cattle introduced, farmers took up to cattle farming. However, at first it was only done for milk production.

Uncle Sam and Beef: In a way, the American Government came to be known as ‘Uncle Sam’ only due its association with beef. During the 1817 war,  a New York meat packer called Sam Wilson supplied meat to the army in barrels. Since the barrels were government property, they were branded with the  U.S. label. Soldiers joked about this saying that U.S. actually meant Uncle Sam. The term and association stuck over course of time and from then on, the U.S. government came to be known as Uncle Sam.

The American Hamburger: The first ever burger was a greasy, just-out-of-the-oven slices of bread garnished with ground mustard mixed with mayonnaise, onion and cucumber pickles. It was sold by Fletcher Davis (an American from Texas) in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair at Athens. With the people of Athens pleased with the new item, it was selling like hot cakes at the fair and soon came to be called the much-revered hamburger.

French Fries and beef: The story goes that while returning from the Fair at Athens, Fletcher Davis was interviewed by a reporter who was curious to know about the fried potatoes he sold at the Fair. Commenting on them, Davis said that he learned the art of frying potatoes that way from his friend in Paris, Texas. Mistakenly, the reporter associated Paris to France and the name of French Fried potatoes stuck from then on. The first French fries were fried with beef tallow.

Lean steak: In 2005, the United States announced that 29 cuts of beef met government guidelines for lean steak.  This is because 29 cuts had less than 10 grams of total fat, 4.5 grams of less saturated fat and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per 3-ounce of serving. These 29-cuts are present in Western Griller steak, Ranch steak, flank steak, tenderloin, lean ground beef, T-bone steak etc.

Why is beef tallow used in soaps? The reasons are aplenty. First and foremost, it is one of the ingredients of good old fashioned soap making. Second, it is one of the harder oils which make white soap that creates good lather. Third, it is cheap, readily available and makes a really good soap that cannot be duplicated by vegetable oil soap. However, beef fat should be rendered into tallow to be used in soaps.

Beef tallow and soap making myths: A massive number of people believe that soaps with beef tallow as ingredient are some of the worst kinds of soaps in the market. This is wrong. Beef tallow is better than many synthetic and chemical ingredients added to soaps by manufacturers. Another myth is, tallow soaps clog skin pores and cause allergic skin conditions. This is not the case, really. Many chemicals in the soaps do so. Many consumers also assume that tallow soaps are of low-quality and damaging to compared to good, factory-made soaps. This is false because many manufacturers of commercial personal care products use animal fat as a primary ingredient. So, do not associate beef tallow soaps with low quality soaps.

Nature of beef tallow soaps: Tallow gives a nice rich creamy lather and good conditioning properties to your soaps. Added to this, it gives hardness to the bar, facilitating longer use. It is better to prefer a soap that has the right combination of soap making oils (like vegetable oils or fragrance oils) along with tallow. This is because tallow is a harder oil and does not clean well even if it produces good lather. Another big disadvantage is, you would not prefer a tallow soap if you are an animal activist, pure vegan, PETA member, or someone who just feels ‘yuck’ to use a soap that has beef tallow in it. On the other side of the spectrum, most of the tallow soap users tend to love the bar and use it regularly.

Making beef tallow soaps: Making tallow soaps is easy if you know how to render beef fat or suet and then know the basic rules of soap making. Tallow is ideal for making white soaps that give rich lather. A basic white soap recipe would normally include 35% beef tallow, 30% coconut, 30% lard and 5% castor oil. Sometimes refined Shea butter can be added to the basic white soap for added advantage of lather.

Soap-making industry uses huge amounts of beef tallow. Since hard beef fat called suet cannot be used in soap making without rendering, manufacturers employ various methods to render beef fat into tallow for commercial use. This rendering can be done at home, if you have a nose for handling beef meat and also know a bit about the multitude uses of beef tallow. This article will provide tips on how to render beef tallow at home.

What exactly is beef tallow? Beef tallow is the rendered form of hard meat/fat taken from the loin and kidney areas of cattle. White or off-white in color, beef tallow is a solid block of beef cleansed of impurities in animal fat. It often carries a mild odor and is soft at room temperature:

1. Get suet: Suet is the first step to making beef tallow. If you want good suet, you have to special order it as there is not much of a demand in most areas. You can special order suet at farmer’s markets, butcher’s shop or even find some packed suets in stores. Once you special order it, you will ensure that it arrives in time, and not too late for you to prepare beef tallow.

2. Cut the suet into small pieces: Cut your suet into smaller pieces of ¼ inch diameter each with a sharp knife. Cutting into smaller pieces facilitates faster melting of the meat. So, the smaller you cut, the faster you make your beef tallow.

3. Add water and let it melt: Add sufficient water and four tablespoons of salt and let the mixture melt in a shallow pan. It make take several hours for the suet to melt. The salt will separate impurities from the meat and let them float in water.

4. Boil over medium to high heat. See to it that the mixture (water-suet) does not boil over your pan. Stir it often to control the boiling mixture. Add more water if the mixture starts to boil away from the pan. Water has to be in the mixture to allow tallow to clear its impurities.

5. Cool after boiling: After hours, say 2 or so, the suet would have dissolved completely in water. Remove the pan from heat and allow it to cool.

6. Sieve the mixture: After cooling, sieve the mixture and store the pure mixture in a plastic container. The sieving would remove the impurities that floated with the water.

7. Refrigerate: Place the tallow container uncovered and allow it to refrigerate overnight. As the fat cools, it would rise above the watery mixture and become hard.

8. Get solid beef tallow: After a night’s refrigeration, allow the tallow container to be placed upside down in the sink. Don’t worry the tallow will not fall off, only the water will. You can then gently scrape of the hardened tallow from the container and remove any impurities too. You would notice that the tallow is now in white or off-white color.