Is Fat Misunderstood?

Apparently animal fat is good for you. At least that’s the opinion of Jennifer McLagan, self-described "contrarian" and author of the book Fat, An appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient, with recipes. She was one of the presenters at a Coupe Space Tasting Club event last Tuesday, February 3 called “Fat: A Misunderstood Ingredient”. Along with Stephen Alexander of Cumbrae’s and Martin Malivoire of Malivoire Wines, she presided over a meal that opened with butter. Two kinds, actually.

It’s a measure of the bad rap that fat has been given over the past 50 years or so that I actually found it hard to admit to people beforehand that I was going to a fat tasting (it just seemed like an open invitation to cruel humour). But when we sat down to our first plates and McLagan invited us to compare the two butters, with or without bread, part of me felt I’d come home.

For some time I’ve been thinking that we northerners should actually up our fat consumption a bit in the winter, at least if we’re spending any time outdoors. Fat is a perfect food for supporting a human body in extra-cold temperatures, and in fact McLagan told one anecdote to illustrate that the Inuit traditionally have survived well on a diet rich in meat; but if you remove the fat, a critical part of the nutritional value is lost, and the body starts to fail. Similarly Les Stroud (AKA Survivorman) mentioned on one of his TV episodes that rabbits are so lean that anyone forced to live on a diet of them must consume all the innards and bones, or else they’ll soon develop a form of malnutrition known as rabbit starvation.

McLagan's thesis is that a few seminal studies in the ‘50s led nutritionists to misguidedly inculcate North Americans into the “fat is bad” way of thinking, whereas Omega-6 animal fats are a necessary part of the human diet, and that these should be balanced about 1-to-2 with Omega-3s. (These days, she says, it’s common for people to have as much as 20 times as much Omega-3 as Omega-6 in their diet.) McLagan also firmly believes that trans-fats are bad.

The tasting menu included the two butters, as I mentioned (one a French butter; the other from Forfar Dairy in eastern Ontario, which is the oldest continually operating independent cheesemaker in the province, and which deserves to become world-famous for its aged cheddar—but that's another story.) There was also fois gras butter, a selection of charcuterie (including one sample from Pingue Prosciutto in Niagara), pork belly, brisket, pork crackling brittle and scones made with suet.

Possibly the most daring item was the rich, creamy dollop of pure rendered Berkshire pork fat from Cumbrae’s, seasoned with rosemary. It’s also known as lardo, “or what Mario Batali [the extravagant NY chef made more famous in the best-seller Heat] would call ‘white prosciutto’,” McLagan pointed out. Yummy indeed... although the bad-fat angel on my right shoulder was giving me a really hard time about it.

McLagan made many fairly radical assertions during the evening:

• Vegetable oils (like corn oil, but not olive oil, which is a fruit oil) are treated so you can't smell whether they’ve gone off or not. Rancid oil is very bad for you, and McLagan suggested everyone should go home and toss all the vegetable oil in the house.
• Whole milk is the only milk you should drink.
• Richly marbled meat and skin-on chicken are better for you than the leaner alternatives. One only needs to eat smaller portions to solve the calorie problem.

Whether you’re intrigued or appalled, McLagan defends her point of view ably in her book (pictured), which is available at The Cookbook Store, among other locations.