Why did Americans stop using beef tallow and why is it back?

The food preparation decisions that go into the production of deep-fried potatoes at McDonald's have become a source of fresh controversy in the U.S. Armed with a questionable theory about the nefarious effects of seed oils on human health, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently praised the fast food chain Steak 'n Shake for deciding to cook fries in beef tallow (rendered beef fat). Why did food chains move away from tallow to other oils in the first place?

Why did beef tallow fall out of use?

In July 1990, McDonald's announced that it would "start cooking their french fries and hash brown potatoes in 100% vegetable oil" and stop using a "blend of vegetable oil and beef tallow," said The New York Times. That blend had given the fries a "perfect crunchy exterior, pillowy interior and a rich and distinctive flavor," said Chowhound. Moving away from that recipe would diminish the taste, but it was a "time of real hysteria about saturated fat," and many thought fast food would be "doomed unless it donned the cloak of good nutrition," said Malcolm Gladwell at The Ringer.

The role of certain fats in cooking and food consumption had come under fire from health advocates who were trying to halt the rise of heart disease. In the 1980s, "nearly a million Americans a year" were "dropping dead from heart attacks" and one of the culprits was thought to be high-fat diets, said Time. In 1980, the Department of Agriculture issued new guidelines that "urged us to cut back on fat, especially the saturated kind found mainly in animal foods such as red meat, butter and cheese," said The Wall Street Journal. The resulting "low-fat craze changed the way Americans eat," said Frontline. Companies saw the "low-fat, high-carb mantra as an opportunity to create a whole new range of products" including "fat-free frozen yogurt, fat-free muffins and cookies," said NPR.

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McDonald's was not immune to this broad trend and appeared to be influenced by a public health campaign spearheaded by the National Heart Savers Association's Phil Sokolof, who wanted to "warn Americans of the perils of the cholesterol-spiking properties" of high-fat foods and "saved his most alkaline bile for a particular offender: McDonald's french fries," said Food & Wine. McDonald's eventually decided to switch to vegetable oil, but the trans fats in hydrogenated vegetable oil "posed serious health threats" that were later identified by researchers and McDonald's eventually "introduced french fry version 3.0, which is cooked in vegetable oil with less trans fat," said Atlas Obscura.

How was the debate resurrected?

Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement have targeted vegetable and seed oils like those used by McDonald's and other fast-food chains as partially responsible for all manner of American health woes, including obesity and anxiety. Kennedy and his allies have argued that a "nefarious elite — including Big Pharma, the FDA and food manufacturers" have pushed seed oils on an unsuspecting public, said The Atlantic. On March 1, the fast food chain Steak 'n Shake announced that it is now "cooking shoestring fries in beef tallow instead of vegetable oil," said Yahoo. Kennedy visited a location in Florida on March 10 as part of a segment with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

A review of the available research, while not unambiguous, shows that "when saturated fats such as beef tallow are replaced with seed oils" that have low omega-6 to omega-3 ratios the "risk of heart attacks and death from heart disease falls," said Mary J. Scourboutakos at The Conversation. Some oils, including corn oil, with higher such ratios may indeed increase the risks of adverse health events. However, switching the "type of frying oil won't make this calorie and cholesterol-rich food healthy," said NPR.