Why did we stop using tallow?

We didn't stop using tallow because it was found to be harmful. We stopped because of a 1980s public-health campaign against saturated fat, which culminated in coordinated pressure in 1990 that pushed fast-food chains and food manufacturers to swap beef tallow for cheaper, plant-based seed oils — many of them partially hydrogenated, a process that, ironically, produced the trans fats later restricted as a worse health risk than the tallow they replaced. Tallow never actually left soap and skincare, and over the past few years it has been returning to both kitchens and grooming. This is general historical information, not medical or dietary advice.

When and why did we stop cooking with tallow?

For most of the 20th century, beef tallow was the standard fat for frying, baking, and food manufacturing — it is stable at high heat, cheap, and flavorful. The shift began in the 1980s, when dietary guidance increasingly singled out saturated fat as a driver of heart disease. Consumer-advocacy pressure framed animal fats as the villain, and by 1990 most large food companies had switched to vegetable and seed oils to avoid the saturated-fat label. The change was driven by public perception and policy momentum, not by tallow itself changing.

Did McDonald's really fry in beef tallow?

Yes. Famously, McDonald's fried its french fries in a beef-tallow blend for decades, which is a large part of why older customers remember the fries tasting different. Under sustained public pressure over saturated fat, the chain moved its fries to vegetable oil around 1990. It is the single most-cited example of the broader industry shift away from animal fats.

Was switching away from tallow actually healthier?

The history here is more tangled than the original campaign assumed. Many of the replacement oils were partially hydrogenated to mimic the stability of solid animal fat — and partial hydrogenation creates artificial trans fats, which decades of research later linked strongly to heart disease, leading the U.S. FDA to effectively ban them from the food supply. So a switch made in the name of heart health introduced a fat that turned out to be a clearer problem. This is documented food-policy history; it is not a claim that tallow is a health food or that any oil is toxic — those debates are ongoing and beyond what the evidence settles.

Why is tallow making a comeback?

Several threads at once: renewed interest in minimally processed, single-ingredient whole foods; skepticism of ultra-processed seed oils in popular wellness discourse; nose-to-tail and low-waste cooking movements; and, in grooming and skincare, a rediscovery of how well animal fats perform on skin. The comeback is as much cultural as nutritional — a swing back toward traditional, recognizable ingredients.

Did tallow ever leave skincare and shaving?

No — and this is the part the food story misses. Tallow has been a backbone of soap and skincare for centuries (the word for a soapmaker, chandler, comes from the same tradition of rendering animal fat). It never fell out of favor in traditional wet shaving, where tallow-based shaving soaps have always been prized for their lather. While the kitchen abandoned tallow for forty years, the shaving soap and skincare worlds quietly kept using it.

What is tallow good for besides cooking?

On skin, tallow's fatty-acid profile — high in oleic, palmitic, and stearic acids — closely resembles the lipids in human sebum, which is why it absorbs well and feels conditioning. In shaving soap specifically, the stearic and palmitic acids build a dense, slick, cushioning lather that protects the skin under a blade. That is why a tallow shave feels lubricated rather than slippery. More on that in is tallow good for your skin? and what is tallow?

Where WhollyKaw fits

WhollyKaw never stopped using tallow. Its tallow shaving soaps — like Eroe Tallow Shaving Soap ($29.99) and 1776 Tallow Shaving Soap ($29.99) — are built on the same rendered-fat tradition that predates the food industry's detour, with whole donkey milk added for extra conditioning. For anyone who prefers plant-based, the same scents exist as vegan formulas. Either way, the labels spell out every ingredient as it appears in the formulation.

Related: is tallow good for your skin? · what is tallow — a complete guide

Self-care done right means knowing why an ingredient fell out of fashion — and judging it on what it actually does, not the headline that displaced it.