saving bacon fat??????

[1stimestar]

Makes it cook better for sure.

[Chris]

omega 6 fatty acids fuel the body's inflammatory response which probably explains the doctor's comment that it can aggravate your arthritis. Believe it or not omega 6 acids are not twice as good as omega 3s, they're pretty bad for you. I used to cook with used fat often, bacon, chicken, turkey, especially turkey. I always save drippings, but I usually skim off the fat. Lately I've taken to using olive oil for everything though to try to be healthier.

I do hate throwing things away though, I did just throw away about half a cup of ham fat from tonight's dinner, after separating it from the other drippings (collagen, etc). I had to sit and think about it though, what could I do with this? I've made bird feed suet out of it before, but have been too busy lately, and it was recycling day so I didn't have any jars or cans handy, so I tossed it.

Fully saturated fats are very stable though, they really don't go bad. Saturated means that every bonding location on the molecule is used up, so it cannot bond to something else and is such very stable. Unsaturated fats have open spots where hydrogen atoms would otherwise be and can bond to whatever and get funky, which is why their shelf life is so much lower. This is also why processed foods (your twinkies, etc) use saturated fats, so they can sit on the shelf forever at room temperate and be fine. Hydrogenated oils are when they take an otherwise unsaturated oil, and add hydrogen to it to make it effectively saturated (shelf stable), so you might think hydrogenated soybean oil is healthier than say, lard, but not especially, possibly even worse.

[1stimestar]

Thanks for the little lesson!

[Rick]

So...you have dead birds all over the yard where they keeled over with heart attacks from clogged arteries? Now that's funny.

Someone help me out here. Did he just bash my beloved twinkies?!

[crashdive123]

Noooooooo - he called them stable.

[shaner]

well all i know is i enjoy readin here !

[Winnie]

Ya'll must eat an awful lot Bacon to have enough grease to save. I've never had so much as enough to sop a slice of bread in!

[Jimmyq]

Used to as a kid, mamma kept the grease in a jar in the fridge, used it for toast etc. These days the european deli we go to sometimes gives out 'schmalz' with a purchase of $10 or more, its a 1/2 cup of the stuff, not from bacon (smoked pork) but rather just rendered pork fat. My inlaws use it for baking, frying and more, we use it for frying sometimes to add flavour etc. Works great on perogies and if there's no bacon for the eggs ;-)

[Woodmaster750]

I like to take bacon grease and rup the inside of my dutchoven and the top's of the biscuits when I'm at hunting camp or just out for a weekend. And to go on the biscuits good home made prickly pear jelly and butter. Yepper.

[shaner]

I like to take bacon grease and rup the inside of my dutchoven and the top's of the biscuits when I'm at hunting camp or just out for a weekend. And to go on the biscuits good home made prickly pear jelly and butter. Yepper.

i sure miss that jelly got to really like it while i was living in tucson, not to much of it for sale here in ohio hahahaha,,, there was a gal down around serra vista id buy pure honey from also, that sure topped of some biscuts!!!!

[Rick]

Shaner - Prickly pear cactus grows just fine in the Midwest and overwinters well. I grew it in my yard for close to 20 years here in Indiana and probably 10 years in Illinois before I moved (we brought some of it with us). I got tired and picking those itty bitty spines out of my fingers and finally got rid of it. But if you like the jelly you can make your own.

[Delta 5168]

I like clarified butter. I separate with heat as usual and then pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. For you frozen bacon grease lovers (as am I) that little storage trick might be interesting to you.

[shaner]

Shaner - Prickly pear cactus grows just fine in the Midwest and overwinters well. I grew it in my yard for close to 20 years here in Indiana and probably 10 years in Illinois before I moved (we brought some of it with us). I got tired and picking those itty bitty spines out of my fingers and finally got rid of it. But if you like the jelly you can make your own.

yep i got a few i brought back from tucson growing here they just dont seem to get very big and never flower, oh those spines are a nasty nasty thing, and last forever, ive still got several friends there i need to get them to mail me some, or just move back hahahaha

[That guy in the woods]

AMEN amen and Amen again..hail bacon and it's byproduct now I gotta go....time to make bacon hah !

[Lamewolf]

My great grandmother lived to be 97 and always told me it was a sin to throw away bacon grease. She saved it, cooked with it and lard all her life and it was a part of her everyday diet ! Yes, I save bacon grease too but don't use it as often as she did, but when I want me some homemade gravy for breakfast, all I got to do is grab my bacon grease and get to cooking.

[Pennsylvania Mike]

I save my bacon grease in a canning jar nest to my Coleman stove where I do the cooking.

[pgvoutdoors]

My grand parents on my mom's side were from West Virginia, beacon fat was a mainstay in their cooking. I keep a jar of it for cooking as well for all the reason mentioned earlier in this thread. I give any extra to a friend for bear bait. I like my beacon cooked until almost black, drop a piece on the floor and it shatters, so filtering the fat of the little burnt pieces is required.

[M118LR]

It's hard to make "Scrapple" AKA "Pan Rabbit" without a little extra bacon/pig fat. Still carry a little slab of salted fat-back for seasoning the mess kit when hitting the wilderness.

[hunter63]

I love bacon.....and DW does use some bacon grease for cooking/seasoning.........
BUT
MIL made the most disgusting "blacked eggs" you ever tried to choke down.
Fry the bacon,...then burn the grease, ........then kill some perfectly good eggs.

They were just plain NASTY.......I don't think anyone else BURNs the grease BLACK first.......LOL
Even DW agrees....

Hunting camp at the cottage...she would call out 'What do you want for breakfast...."
We would holler back......"Not Eggs!"

(Guess my "B's" are not showing up????)

[Rick]

Bacon has some type of DNA repair ability. I consider it quite medicinal for repair all my DNA. Especially DNA in the taste buds and TV remote finger. It must work equally well on the sleep centers in the brain because after a couple or five bacon sandwiches I need a nap.