[halostatue]

I won't bother as I'm vegetarian, which means that I really don't care the "supposed" benefits (which likely pale compared to the ingestion of long chain saturated fats present in beef tallow, as opposed to the short and medium chain saturated fats present in coconut oil). Beef tallow is irrelevant to me except for restaurateurs or food manufacturers who use it without disclosing it. (One should disclose its use in any case. For people who avoid pork, knowing that your product contains "beef lard" instead of "whatever lard was cheapest this week" matters, because they can't do "pork lard".)

But the reality is that there's insufficient science for the promotion of beef tallow in RFK's health treason. For large groups of people it's off limits due to personal dietary restrictions (religious or animal product avoidance) and would be contraindicated for anyone who currently has cardiovascular diseases involving high cholesterol.

Use beef tallow, don't use beef tallow. I don't care unless I'm possibly eating food that you have prepared or manufactured (because I don't want rendered animal fats in my food). But don't pretend that it's a health food. It isn't, but can still be eaten in moderation by anyone who _doesn't_ mind beef products in their food.

[bowmessage]

> For large groups of people it's off limits due to personal dietary restrictions

So you’re proposing that the FDA should promote a vegan diet to cater to the lowest common denominator?

[halostatue]

Not sure how you got that from anything I’ve written, because it’s not what I said.

What I said is the FDA shouldn’t be promoting junk recommendations as if it were gold-standard science.

There are good scientific reasons to avoid animal fats in one’s diet. There are no good scientific reasons to add them back to one’s diet.

In moderation, they aren’t harmful and may indeed improve the flavour or texture of certain dishes when had in moderation. I personally love making butter sage gnocchi or ravioli (it doesn’t work as well with olive oil), but I only make it every couple of months.

Beyond everything else, we know that replacing animal protein with plant protein is a good way to improve health. But it’s not accessible or acceptable to everyone. It’s also not necessarily a good use of some land — land that might be perfectly suited to raising goats is poor for growing crops for human consumption.

[bowmessage]

How do you incorporate Vitamin B12 into your diet?

[halostatue]

I'm not vegan, but ovo-lacto vegetarian, so B12 deficiency isn't anything I've ever had to worry about.

With appropriate fortified foods (synthesized bacterial sources adding B12 to nutritional yeast, plant milks, etc.), vegans don't need to worry about it either.

A quick bit of research suggests that as much at 16% of meat eaters have B12 deficiency, so it's a systemic problem.