The Real Reason Why People Stopped Buying Lard

Fat has a long and sordid history in American food culture, especially in the last century or so. We love it and crave it, as evidenced by the skyrocketing popularity of greasy fast food cuisine. We also hate it with a fervor, as proven by countless diet programs targeting fat, and the rapid growth of the health food industry (via Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences). And among all the fats out there, there is probably none more contentious than lard. 

Rendered from the fattiest parts of a pig, lard was once a mainstay in pretty much every American pantry (via NPR). Fast-forward to today, and it's a safe bet that most of us don't have any lard lying around in our kitchens, nor would we want to. And why is that? How did lard go from being our go-to fat source to essentially a dirty word in the world of healthy cooking (via Slate)? Well, the answer is a little bit complicated — it involves a peek at the history books, as well as a look back at our scientific understanding of fats and health, plus a heaping dose of capitalism. Keep scrolling to find out the real reason people stopped buying lard.

Around the same time that Americans were coming to understand the perils of the meatpacking industry, a growing soap and candle company by the name of Procter & Gamble stumbled upon a technological breakthrough that would completely change the fat game.

At the turn of the 20th century, Procter & Gamble was looking for ways to optimize their soap production, as well as do something with the company's huge supply of cottonseed oil, as the invention of the lightbulb led to a decline in demand for candles (via NPR). Proctor & Gamble invested in a new technology called hydrogenation, which turned cottonseed oil into the pearly, thick substance that we know today as hydrogenated vegetable oil. Proctor & Gamble dubbed it Crisco (via The Atlantic).

This was around 1910, just a few years after the release of The Jungle. As Procter & Gamble was looking for a way to market and sell this new product, the already growing skepticism around meat processing and lard consumption presented a perfect window of opportunity. Plus, during that time, health food claims didn't face the same regulation they do today, so Proctor & Gamble was also able to market their new Crisco product as being healthier than lard. It was an instant hit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Crisco remains a household name to this day (via The Conversation).

By the time the U.S. had recovered from the Great Depression and World War II, a new threat against lard was emerging. This time it was science. NPR reports that in the 1950s, scientists really started raising alarms about the links between lard and heart disease, which was on its way to becoming the leading cause of death among Americans (via NIH). Specifically, researchers warned that saturated fats like lard contain high levels of cholesterol, which was thought to be the main cause of heart disease (via AOCS). 

In the last several decades, however, the tables have turned as health experts have come to new understandings about the fat and heart health. Scientists have actually found that the trans fats in vegetable shortening, like Crisco, can cause a range of health issues, including major heart problems (via Healthline). Meanwhile it seems that the saturated fat from animal sources, including butter and lard, is quite not as bad for our health as previously thought. On top of that, science has now shown that there isn't really a link between the cholesterol you eat and heart disease. 

Lard really started to face fierce competition in the market when Crisco hit the shelves in the early 20th century. Procter & Gamble launched an aggressive advertising campaign, propagating the purity of its factory-produced product, and marketing Crisco as healthier and easier to digest than lard (via The Conversation). Regulations on health claims for foods didn't really come around until the late 20th century (via Fooducate). 

This paved the way for increased marketing by margarine and vegetable oil companies to push their products as a better fat (via AOCS). Then, as America's "War on Fat" (as Time Magazine puts it) waged on throughout the second half of the 20th century, there was even more urgency to market animal fat alternatives as more heart healthy. The New York Times reported that during this time "an entire industry emerged to create fat substitutes." This mindset spilled across the entire food industry, with the steady rise in low or reduced fat food products, ranging from dairy to desserts, chips and snacks to even leaner meats, all backed by a major industry advertising push to "reinforcing the less-fat-is-good-health message." And the marketing worked ... to the detriment of our health. Of course, all of this was turned on its head amid new scientific breakthroughs around the turn of the 21st century, which would inevitably lead to a whole new set of healthy eating trends (via Vogue).

Nowadays, it's easy to see why lard is such an overlooked or outcast fat. Just roam your local grocery store. There is a whole range of fats and oils to choose from on the shelves, from mainstays like butter, margarine, and olive oil to a variety of nut and seed oils that get the job done.

Thanks to our crazed rebellion against all things fat in the latter half of the 20th century, America has seen an explosion in supposedly healthier fat alternatives (via PhillyMag.com) — arguably none more pervasive than olive oil, which has become an American household staple since the 1980s (per Washington Post, New York Times). 

Today, the American Heart Association recommends using the following common cooking oils, which they say are better for your health (in alphabetical order, not any sort of ranking): canola, corn, olive, peanut, safflower, soybean, and sunflower.