At Dough n Joe, owner Brad Livezey is deep frying homemade doughnuts with an old-school ingredient: Beef tallow.
His Hampden Township and Mechanicsburg shops recently joined chains such as Steak ‘n Shake, Outback Steakhouse and Popeyes in embracing the cooking method.
After researching beef tallow, Livezey now considers it a healthier and more flavorful alternative to the soy-based vegetable oil blend he previously used.
“Tallow is pretty pure. They don’t do much to it. It’s going back to what our ancestors used for cooking,” he said.
Plus, he said the doughnuts taste richer, and a bit savory with a crispy texture.
Tallow — rendered beef fat cooked down to a solid form — is having a resurgence. Once shunned for heart health concerns, its popularity has been driven by flavor, nostalgia and backlash against seed oils.
For generations, beef tallow was a staple in American cooking until high levels of saturated fat linked it to cardiovascular disease. In 1990, McDonald’s stopped frying french fries in beef tallow.
The trend has gained notable supporters, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who has advocated for beef tallow as part of his campaign to eliminate ultra-processed seed oils from American diets.
“Seed oils are one of the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in foods. We need to Make Frying Oil Tallow Again,” Kennedy shared on an Instagram post.
Kennedy and other proponents believe seed oils, such as corn, grapeseed, sunflower and canola, are responsible for health issues ranging from inflammation to high rates of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes.
As a result, some food manufacturers, such as Realgood Foods Co., maker of frozen breaded chicken products, have turned to beef tallow as an ingredient. Others are using tallow as a beauty treatment on their skin.
The debate has baffled nutritionists, who say vegetable oils are healthier than alternatives from animal-based products such as lard and butter.
“I don’t know where it came from that seed oils are bad,” Martha Belury, an Ohio State University food science professor, told the Associated Press.
Caitlin Dow, PhD, a senior nutrition scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said beef tallow is not a health food, noting about a tablespoon of beef tallow has a day’s recommended limit for saturated fat.
So far, Livezey said, one thing holds true — the change has been a boon to business. One customer, he said, drove an hour to sample the doughnuts and, in a review, called them the best doughnuts around.
Livezey admits beef tallow has alienated at least one segment of customers: Vegetarians and vegans.
“We might have lost a few vegetarians, but I’m not worried about it,” he said. “The six vegetarians I lost, I gained 100 new customers. We made up the difference with a whole new ballgame of people.”
Figuring the more restaurants using tallow the better, Livezey convinced his friend Vinny Epifanotto, owner of Amici Pizza in Hampden and Lower Allen townships to jump on the trend.
Epifanotto said he was already considering the switch before Livezey approached him. Amici uses the tallow for fried foods, including fries, wings and chicken.
A message on the shops’ front doors alerts customers to the change.
“It’s less inflammatory than your traditional frying oils. It fries everything crispier,” Epifanotto said. “You can notice the flavor on my french fries, my mozzarella sticks and especially my chicken wings. The skin on my chicken wings is nice and crisp.”
Business at the pizza shops is up since the switch and Epifanotto said he’s selling about 13 cases of french fries per week, up from between five and six cases.
“We’re getting nothing but love,” he said.
On the downside, beef tallow costs more than traditional cooking oils, but restaurant owners say it lasts longer.
Beef tallow costs about $1 to $1.50 per pound, compared to about 60-70 cents per pound for vegetable oils.
Dough n Joe and Amici Pizza have not raised prices.
“With the volume of sales, and I hope it continues, raising prices doesn’t make any sense because the volume is there,” Epifanotto said.