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Some restaurant chains adopt beef tallow for cooking

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Kennedy's beef tallow claims face scrutiny from health

experts

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Kennedy could influence dietary guidelines and research

funding

(Updates February 13 story to include Kennedy's comments on

beef tallow incentives in paragraph 6)

By Renee Hickman

Feb 13 (Reuters) - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lowered a raw

Thanksgiving turkey into a bubbling pot of cooking fat in a

video posted to social media last November.

"This is how we cook the MAHA way," said Kennedy, who the

Senate confirmed as head of the U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services on Thursday, referring to his Trump

administration slogan, Make America Healthy Again.

Kennedy was cooking with beef tallow, or rendered beef fat,

which he has repeatedly claimed is healthier than canola or

other oils from seeds.

Beef tallow, used primarily for cooking but also in products

like soap and biodiesel, has been championed by a subset of

online wellness influencers. Its nutritional merits compared to

seed oils, however, have been disputed.

The market for beef tallow was worth an estimated $480

million in 2023, up from $446 million in 2018, according to the

North American Renderers Association. It is a fraction of the

market for vegetable-based cooking oils, but producers expect

the tallow market to grow as a result of Kennedy's enthusiasm.

Following his swearing-in on Thursday, Kennedy told Fox

News that "McDonald's ought to be incentivized" to use beef

tallow in its Big Macs.

Some companies had taken note of rising interest even before

his confirmation.

In January, Indianapolis-based fast food chain Steak 'n

Shake announced it would begin cooking its shoestring fries in

beef tallow. The chain posted a photo on social media of Kennedy

in a car with the window rolled down, with the caption: "Did

this man just pull up in our drive thru?"

Other restaurant chains have also jumped onboard.

Sweetgreen, the Los Angeles-based salad chain, is eliminating

seed oils from its menus and using products like olive and

avocado oil instead, while Blue Collar Restaurant Group, which

owns restaurants in Wyoming and Montana, is replacing seed oils

with butter and beef tallow as well as olive and avocado oil.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to lead

the sprawling health department in November, the former

environmental lawyer's claims about food - from beef tallow to

raw milk - have come under scrutiny.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit

consumer advocacy group, has said that seed oil opponents

overstate the risks of inflammation, heart disease and obesity

from seed oil, and that a diet rich in saturated fats such as

those found in meats, butter and cheese poses a larger health

risk.

Yet a shift away from seed oils in cooking could accelerate

with Kennedy as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Kennedy may hold sway in appointing advisors to a panel that

determines the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a document

created every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture

and the Food and Drug Administration, according to Sarah

Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for

Science in the Public Interest.

The guidelines are used in everything from the preparation

of school lunches to the determination of daily values on food

nutrition labels.

Sorscher said Kennedy may influence research funding and

push for regulation or even bans on products such as seed oils.

He could also use the visibility of his new position to

pressure companies to follow his lead on seed oils and beef

tallow without having to enforce any changes in policy, she

added.

"Those companies that are seeking to please him and secure

favor might reformulate to remove products that he's targeted

and remove ingredients that he's targeted," Sorscher said.

Eric Gustafson, chief executive of California-based animal

fat refiner Coast Packing Company, said he watched in the 1990s

as fast food companies like McDonald's led a wholesale shift

away from beef tallow to vegetable oils in response to medical

research linking animal fats to heart disease.

Gustafson said he has started to see the pendulum swing

back, with sales increasing steadily over the past decade.

Kennedy, often referred to by his initials RFK, used tallow

from one of Coast Packing's customers in the Thanksgiving video,

Gustafson said.

"We're trying to figure out how (that customer) can get to

RFK to give him a few more cases of tallow and tell him thank

you," he said.