Will Beef Tallow Kill You?

tl;dr: Do vegans always lie?

“Doctors and dietitians with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine are sharing their concerns about the health risks associated with beef tallow, which is high in saturated fat that raises cholesterol levels, increasing the risk of heart disease.” (PCRM, 2025)

The PCRM is a vegan advocacy group masquerading as a neutral physicians association.

Claim:

Who could object to that?

Fact:

Source Query: Site: pcrm.org vegan

In my experience, vegans are universally liars. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t met an honest vegan yet, but I have met a lot of them. I’m not alone in this opinion, either. This renowned scientist goes through his experience with vegan/vegetarians, you be the judge.

Dr. David Klurfeld on Meat NOT Causing Cancer, Bogus Vegetarian Scientists, and Balanced Nutrition.

At any rate, the PCRM is out with their latest scare:

“Beef fat is approximately 50% saturated fat, which raises cholesterol levels,” says Anna Herby, DHSc, RD, CDCES, a nutrition education specialist with the Physicians Committee, which has more than 17,000 doctor members. “While the beef industry has suggested that the stearic acid in beef should limit its cholesterol-raising effect, testing shows that beef tallow has cholesterol-raising effects similar to that of other meats.” (PCRM, 2025: further quotes bolded, not referenced)

That source (“testing shows”) is Denke, 1994.

What Denke says about beef fat is:

“Therefore, the stearic acid content of both beef tallow and cocoa butter reduces the cholesterol-raising potential of these fats.” (Denke, 1994)

Just as the “beef industry” claims.

Denke does report that tallow alone increases cholesterol, but so what? We know from multiple human RCTs that lowering saturated fat is ineffective as a means of reducing total or CVD mortality:

“We found little or no effect of reducing saturated fat on all-cause mortality (RR 0.96; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.03; 11 trials, 55,858 participants) or cardiovascular mortality (RR 0.95; 95% CI 0.80 to 1.12, 10 trials, 53,421 participants), both with GRADE moderate-quality evidence.” (Hooper, 2020)

PCRM does not cite that study, of course. Instead they cite the study discussed in a prior post:

Quick Study Analysis: "Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality"

And an even older study from the Harvard baloney factory, from 2016 (Zong, 2016). Both of these are epidemiological studies from the garbage data source discussed in the above post, rather than from the higher-quality RCTs discussed in (Hooper, 2020). It’s misdirection, in other words, a red herring. It’s of course the same type of misdirection that Willett and Hu commit in the paper discussed in that post above.

As far as tallow having “cholesterol-raising effects similar to that of other meats,” tallow is not compared to “other meats” in (Denke, 1994). Lean beef is compared to other meats, and they find that “Lean beef is no more hypercholesterolemic than chicken or fish” (Denke, 1994).

However, the PCRM ignores that little detail, citing another study (Bergeron 2019), to make the claim that:

“It turned out that both white and red meat raised LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol, compared with plant-based proteins, and did so to about the same extent.”

This misrepresent (Bergeron, 2019) in two respects.

First, while white and red meat did both raise LDL cholesterol, they did not raise the “bad” LDL cholesterol (smaller, more oxidized, pattern B), but only the less-concerning pattern A LDL (larger, less oxidized) (Chait, 1993):

“We have shown here that, compared with nonmeat as the major protein source, diets containing high amounts of either red or white meat, and without differences in other macronutrients, result in higher concentrations of LDL cholesterol and apoB, and that these effects are primarily attributable to increases in large, cholesterol-rich LDL particles….

Thus, the estimated impact of red meat, white meat, and dairy-derived SFA on CVD risk as reflected by their effects on LDL cholesterol and apoB concentrations may be attenuated by the lack of their effects on smaller LDL particles that are most strongly associated with CVD.” (Bergeron, 2019)

So plant protein is making the LDL more atherogenic, by shifting from pattern A to pattern B (Chait, 1993).

Second, it was not due to the “plant-based proteins”, as that paper makes clear:

“…It remains unclear to what extent the lipid-lowering effects of the nonmeat diet can be ascribed to components inherent to plant-based foods (e.g., plant-derived phytochemicals, micronutrients, differences in amount and type of dietary fiber) compared with the removal of red and white meat.” (Bergeron, 2019)

They don’t attribute it to any specific attribute of the non-meat protein source.

Once you know what to look for, the PCRM are quite consistent:

“Replacing saturated fat with plant sources of fat has been shown to be beneficial against heart disease. A review in the journal Circulation looked at 13 studies totaling 310,602 participants and found that replacing 5% of calories from saturated fat from animal sources with linoleic acid—found in vegetable oil, nuts, and seeds—was associated with a 9% lower risk of heart disease and a 13% lower risk of death from heart disease.”

That review is yet another product of the Harvard baloney factory, more epidemiology presented in lieu of higher-quality studies. Again, they’re using an older study (Farvid, 2014) that agrees with their perspective instead of a newer study, using higher-quality RCTs, which refutes it:

“Primary outcomes: we found low-quality evidence that increased intake of omega-6 fats may make little or no difference to all-cause mortality (risk ratio (RR) 1.00…) or CVD events (RR 0.97…).” (Hooper, 2018)

You can see how Harvard’s output is used. The sheer volume of product affects the debate, as we’re are continually told the “weight of the evidence” favors one hypothesis or another (Boeke, 2014). Unlike the law, where the phrase refers to quality, in nutritional epidemiology as practiced at Harvard it seems to refer solely to the printed weight of the research.

A war they are winning.

Conclusion

The data about tallow being risky seems equivocal, at best.

What’s really lacking is any evidence that the fats in tallow are actually harmful (since raising cholesterol is not equivalent to harm).

“Fifty years later, I still cannot cite a definite mechanism or mediator by which saturated fat is shown to kill people.” (Lands, 2008)

Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem to do you any good to follow the PCRM’s advice and become a vegan. If being a vegan really raises your risk of death, is that really Responsible Medicine?

Data from (Blackie, 2023)

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References

Bergeron, N., Chiu, S., Williams, P. T., M King, S., & Krauss, R. M. (2019). Effects of Red Meat, White Meat, and Nonmeat Protein Sources on Atherogenic Lipoprotein Measures in the Context of Low Compared with High Saturated Fat Intake: A Randomized Controlled Trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 110(1), 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqz035

Blackie, K., Bobe, G., & Takata, Y. (2023). Vegetarian Diets and Risk of All-Cause Mortality in a Population-Based Prospective Study in the United States. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 42(1), 130. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-023-00460-9

Boeke, C. E., Eliassen, A. H., Chen, W. Y., Cho, E., Holmes, M. D., Rosner, B., Willett, W. C., & Tamimi, R. M. (2014). Dietary fat intake in relation to lethal breast cancer in two large prospective cohort studies. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 146(2), 383–392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-014-3005-8

Chait, A., Brazg, R. L., Tribble, D. L., & Krauss, R. M. (1993). Susceptibility of Small, Dense, Low-Density Lipoproteins to Oxidative Modification in Subjects with the Atherogenic Lipoprotein Phenotype, Pattern B. The American Journal of Medicine, 94(4), 350–356. https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(93)90144-E

Denke, M. (1994). Role of beef and beef tallow, an enriched source of stearic acid, in a cholesterol-lowering diet. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 60(6), 1044S-1049S. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/60.6.1044S

Farvid, M. S., Ding, M., Pan, A., Sun, Q., Chiuve, S. E., Steffen, L. M., Willett, W. C., & Hu, F. B. (2014). Dietary Linoleic Acid and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies. Circulation, 130(18), 1568–1578. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.114.010236

Hooper, L., Al‐Khudairy, L., Abdelhamid, A. S., Rees, K., Brainard, J. S., Brown, T. J., Ajabnoor, S. M., O’Brien, A. T., Winstanley, L. E., Donaldson, D. H., Song, F., & Deane, K. H. (2018). Omega‐6 Fats for the Primary and Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 7. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011094.pub3

Hooper, L., Martin, N., Jimoh, O. F., Kirk, C., Foster, E., & Abdelhamid, A. S. (2020). Reduction in Saturated Fat Intake for Cardiovascular Disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 5. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011737.pub2

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. (2025, March 14). Beef Tallow: Doctors Group Shares Consumer Health Alert Warning [Propaganda]. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/beef-tallow-doctors-group-shares-consumer-health-alert-warning

Zong, G., Li, Y., Wanders, A. J., Alssema, M., Zock, P. L., Willett, W. C., Hu, F. B., & Sun, Q. (2016). Intake of Individual Saturated Fatty Acids and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in Us Men and Women: Two Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Studies. BMJ, 355, i5796. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5796