My family has discovered bacon grease, and it’s pointless to try and stop them. There is a glass jar full of rendered bacon fat on the top shelf of our refrigerator. The boys (my husband) uses it to pop popcorn. I’m sorry to admit this; but popcorn popped in bacon grease is but one thing: delicious. At first, I just ignored them; believing that at least they were not using Crisco — and my husband has been so neat and clean about saving and storing the grease — how could I complain?
Since then, I ventured onto Google and started researching… just a bit. Just hoping that maybe I would find some new tidbit of science that proves, perhaps, that bacon is the new health food.
I found nothing of the sort.
Other than reading about the dangers of fat going rancid, and the fact that most of this food source gets its nutrients from — here comes that word — saturated fat, I could find only aficionados who swear by bacon fat as a unparalleled food source for flavoring everything from green beans to potatoes, and popcorn. Besides, the idea was born from friends at our lake house.
If you have news to help me, please let me know.
Health food? No. Not so bad as they thought food? Could be. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-saturated-fat-review-article-by-dr.html (the archives list many other articles)
I tend to believe that you need a balance of all natural fats in moderation. That eliminates trans fats but includes butter, margarine, omega 3, and animal fats. Fat makes food taste good and should be enjoyed. Use it as a seasoning, not a side dish. My MIL has a great recipe for poverty stew that is cabbage, potatoes and hot dogs/sausage sauteed in bacon fat. It’s fabulous! I keep my bacon fat in a custard dish in the freezer and use it where I think it will give the most flavor, like in greens and beans. I spend the money to get the thick cut, nitrate free, good stuff so I like to get as much flavor for my money as possible.
Thank you! That’s just what I was looking for. And, I’ll definitely check out the nitrate-free bacon too. And, yummm, on that stew.
Whoops! That would be olive oil, not margarine!
We are big fans of bacon grease — also drained and stored in the fridge. I found this http://thou-and-thou-only.blogspot.com/2009/08/comparing-butter-to-other-animal-fats.html
I use the bacon grease when I fry eggs, and it delish when used instead of oil in homemade bread.
And now I will have to try it next time we make popcorn 🙂 And I don’t worry about nitrates, there is usually more naturally occurring nitrates in vegetables than bacon. We’ve even cured and smoked our own bacon, and the salt containing nitrates was important to prevent botulism. But I know others worry about it.
There’s an old saying to welcome newcomers to southern living: “Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed on its many uses later.” I do use it for beans (not only green, but limas too), and collard greens, all kinds of stuff. I had never heard of it for popcorn, but that makes perfect sense. I’ll try it!
Incidentally, I was the one who asked about garden pumpkins for pie around Thanksgiving. I tried using fresh, roasted pumpkins for pie, and mine did not turn out at all.
who cares!!! bacon grease is the only way to pop popcorn. I don’t worry about health crap!!