On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:05:08 -0500, Dick Margulis
> wrote:

>Nancy Young wrote:
>> "Ophelia" > wrote
>>
>>> "Nancy Young" > wrote
<snip>
>> Regardless, I've given up any effort trying to explain to her what
>> Crisco is, or what she might use instead. It's a solid vegetable fat.
>> nancy
<snip>
> It's only in the last few years that we've
>started taking a second look at the logic. (There is not necessarily a
>direct causal relationship between consuming animal fats and developing
>high cholesterol; it's more complicated than that.) And so now it's
>trans-fats that are the bad guys. If you'll recall, they used to be the
>good guys.

Quite. I had a boyfriend who was rabidly anti-butter and slathered
margarine on his toast with wild abandon. I would love to have seen
his face when the transfat news came out. I'm not usually so mean,
but this was most decidedly NOT a good guy :-)

>However, a lot of smaller bakeries (diners with homemade pies, for
>example, and whatever neighborhood bakeries may still be left) still use
>lard in piecrusts, because you really can't beat it for that. Lard is
>also the fat of choice for greasing bread pans and baking sheets,
>assuming it's not a kosher bakery. As a bread ingredient, though, I'd
>agree with you that US bakers, for the most part, don't use lard and
>haven't in a long time.

I rarely buy commercial baked goods or chips/crackers anything like
that. I prepare MOST of my meals and don't rely on frozen stuff or
convenience food, other than the occasional frozen pizza ;-) I don't
worry about the fat issue much as I decide what goes into 90-95% of
what I consume. And I like it that way! YMMV.

TammyM, not judgin', just sayin'