Why Does Lard Have a Bad Reputation? Uncovering the Myths

December 24, 2025 •

4 min read

Historically, lard was a culinary staple, used for centuries across many cultures for its superior cooking properties. However, its decline in popularity during the 20th century was largely driven by a combination of industrial competition, misleading marketing, and shifting nutritional perceptions.

Quick Summary

The downfall of lard's image stems from historical food sanitation scandals and powerful marketing campaigns from vegetable oil companies. This was compounded by later, sometimes misguided, dietary fat guidelines.

Key Points

Sanitation Scandals: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle linked lard to unsanitary meatpacking, damaging its image.
Marketing Warfare: Vegetable shortening, like Crisco, was aggressively marketed as a purer, cleaner alternative, displacing lard.
Misguided Health Advice: Mid-20th-century anti-saturated fat campaigns wrongly demonized natural fats like lard, ignoring the dangers of artificial trans-fats in hydrogenated products.
Fat Composition: Quality, unhydrogenated lard is primarily composed of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, not just saturated fat.
Superior Baking: Lard is prized by bakers for producing the flakiest and most tender pie crusts and pastries, a quality rediscovered in modern cuisine.
Modern Revival: A renewed focus on natural, minimally processed foods has led to a re-evaluation and appreciation of lard's culinary benefits.

The Muckraker's Tale: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

One of the most significant blows to lard's reputation came from outside the kitchen and onto the political stage. In 1906, Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle was published, exposing the horrific and unsanitary conditions of Chicago's meatpacking industry. While the book was intended to highlight labor exploitation, its vivid depictions of gruesome practices, including workers potentially falling into rendering vats, left a lasting impression on the American public. The novel created a deep-seated revulsion for meat products and, by extension, animal fats like lard, leading consumers to seek out cleaner-seeming alternatives.

The Rise of Vegetable Shortening and Marketing Warfare

In the wake of Sinclair's exposé, a powerful new competitor entered the market: vegetable shortening. In 1911, Procter & Gamble introduced Crisco, a product made from hydrogenated cottonseed oil. The company launched an aggressive marketing campaign that positioned Crisco as a modern, sanitary, and 'purer' fat, a stark contrast to the animal-derived lard now associated with filth.

Crisco was presented as a more consistent and reliable product than lard, which could vary depending on the rendering process.
The marketing emphasized its clean, white appearance, reinforcing the idea of purity and safety over the sometimes-yellowish, variable texture of lard.
As a vegetable-based product, it appealed to those looking for a non-animal fat source, including vegetarians and Kosher consumers.

This marketing push successfully cemented vegetable shortening's place in American kitchens, displacing lard as the go-to fat for baking and frying.

Mid-Century Fat Phobia and Misguided Health Advice

As the 20th century progressed, the public's perception of lard was further damaged by a growing fear of saturated fats and cholesterol. Scientific recommendations in the 1950s linked saturated fats to heart disease, leading to a massive push toward low-fat diets. Lard, being an animal fat, was categorized as unhealthy, while vegetable oils and margarine were promoted as healthier choices. However, as later research revealed, the health claims for partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening were deeply flawed. This process creates trans-fats, which are far more detrimental to cardiovascular health than the saturated fats in unhydrogenated lard. The initial demonization of all saturated fats, without distinguishing between natural and industrially altered ones, unfairly condemned lard for decades.

The Misconceptions and the Modern Revival

Modern culinary experts and nutritionists have begun re-evaluating lard, revealing several misconceptions that contributed to its poor image. For one, unhydrogenated lard is a minimally processed, natural fat. Furthermore, unhydrogenated lard's fat composition is more complex than often assumed. It is comprised of roughly 40% saturated fats and over 50% monounsaturated fats, with about half of the monounsaturated portion being oleic acid—the same fatty acid prized in olive oil.

Here are some of the key factors that have led to lard's modern revival:

Superior Texture: Lard's crystalline structure creates incredibly flaky pie crusts and tender pastries, a quality difficult to achieve with vegetable shortening or butter alone.
High Smoke Point: With a smoke point of 375°F (190°C), rendered lard is excellent for high-heat cooking like frying and sautéing, without breaking down or developing a burnt flavor.
Neutral Flavor (with a bonus): Properly rendered leaf lard has a remarkably neutral flavor profile, making it suitable for both sweet and savory dishes. Lard from other areas of the pig can offer a pleasant, savory depth.
Nose-to-Tail Eating: Using lard is part of a sustainable, waste-reducing approach to meat consumption, utilizing every part of the animal.
Better than Trans-Fats: Many now prefer natural, minimally processed fats like lard over older, partially hydrogenated vegetable shortenings which contained trans-fats.

A Comparison of Lard vs. Common Fats


Feature	Lard (Unhydrogenated)	Vegetable Shortening (Older versions)	Butter
Sourced From	Pork fat	Hydrogenated vegetable oils	Churned cream
Primary Fat Type	Monounsaturated + Saturated	Trans-fats (historically)	Saturated
Trans-Fats	None	High content (historically)	None
Flavor	Mild/Neutral (leaf lard), savory (fatback)	Bland, flavorless	Rich, buttery
Smoke Point	High (around 375°F / 190°C)	Moderate (329°F / 165°C)	Low (302°F / 150°C)
Baking Performance	Flaky, tender crusts	Fluffy texture, holds shape	Rich flavor, tender baked goods
Shelf Stability	Refrigerated (unhydrogenated)	Long shelf life	Refrigerated

Conclusion: Reclaiming Lard's Place in the Kitchen

Lard's poor reputation was a concoction of historical events and aggressive commercial marketing, bolstered by broad, and in some cases, inaccurate, nutritional guidance. It was unfairly cast aside for highly processed alternatives that later proved far less healthy. Today, with a better understanding of fats and a move toward natural, unprocessed foods, lard is experiencing a renaissance. By recognizing the difference between high-quality, unhydrogenated lard and its commercialized, trans-fat-laden counterparts of the past, home cooks and professional chefs can appreciate its unique culinary advantages. In its pure form, lard is a versatile, flavorful, and reliable fat that deserves its rightful place back in the kitchen.

For a deeper dive into the history of lard's market displacement, consider listening to this segment: Who Killed Lard? : Planet Money - NPR.

Frequently Asked Questions

While lard does contain saturated fat, it also has a high percentage of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat (similar to olive oil). The blanket demonization of saturated fats in the mid-20th century failed to distinguish between natural fats and the harmful artificial trans-fats found in older hydrogenated shortenings.

Lard is a rendered animal fat from pigs, while shortening is typically a solid fat made from hydrogenated vegetable oils. Historically, shortening was heavily processed and contained trans-fats, unlike natural lard.

Yes, profoundly. Though the novel fictionalized some events, its exposure of unsanitary meatpacking conditions sparked widespread public disgust, causing people to turn away from animal products like lard toward supposedly 'purer' alternatives.

No. Much of the lard sold in supermarkets today is industrially processed and often hydrogenated to increase shelf stability, which can add trans-fats. High-quality, unhydrogenated lard is typically made by artisanal producers or rendered at home.

Lard's unique crystalline structure makes baked goods, particularly pie crusts and biscuits, incredibly flaky and tender. It has a higher melting point than butter, which prevents overmixing and results in superior texture.

The flavor depends on the type and how it is rendered. Leaf lard, from the fat around the kidneys, is prized for its neutral flavor, making it ideal for baking. Lard rendered from other parts of the pig may have a more distinct, savory, porky flavor.

High-quality, unhydrogenated lard is a good source of monounsaturated fats and is rich in Vitamin D, especially when sourced from pasture-raised pigs. It also has a high smoke point, making it a stable fat for high-heat cooking.