Something wild is happening in the greasy underbelly of American fast food, and it’s got nothing to do with a new secret sauce or limited-time burger.
We’re witnessing a culinary rebellion that would make your nutritionist do a double-take.
And fast food chains are ditching seed oils faster than teenagers bail on a family dinner.
RFK Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign might just be the unexpected catalyst behind this greasy revolution.
Who would’ve thought a former presidential candidate’s – turned Health and Human Services Secretary – health crusade could spark a cooking oil uprising?
Let’s rewind. For decades, fast food joints have been drowning our favorite foods in industrial seed oils – those ultra-processed liquids extracted from soybeans, canola, and corn that sound more like chemistry experiments than food.
These oils became the go-to for cheap, mass-produced frying because they were dirt cheap and had a long shelf life. Problem is, they’re about as healthy as a cigarette smoothie.
Enter the tallow comeback. Beef tallow, that rich, flavorful fat our grandparents used before food corporations decided processed was better than traditional, is making a triumphant return.
Chains are realizing that maybe, just maybe, cooking in a traditional animal fat might be healthier than something manufactured in a lab.
Take Smashburger, for instance. They’ve been quietly frying their famous fries and burgers in beef tallow for years, giving them a depth of flavor that seed oil simply can’t match.
Now other chains are paying attention. It’s like a culinary domino effect, with each restaurant looking at their competitors and thinking, “If they can do it, why can’t we?”
🚨 FAST-FOOD CHAINS USING BEEF TALLOW FOR FRIES
While most places have switched to vegetable oils, a few chains still fry their fries (and other items) in beef tallow for that extra rich flavor.
Here are some of the key spots:
Buffalo Wild Wings: Famous for wings, but their… https://t.co/ILf3mAtn0c pic.twitter.com/udYEKiRFH3
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 22, 2024
Most recently, Steak ‘N Shake “RFK’d” their fries and others are hopping on the trend.
🍟 SHAKING IT UP: @SteaknShake serves up a big win for @RobertKennedyJr, swapping vegetable oil for beef tallow in all restaurants nationwide. pic.twitter.com/2FdD9sor07
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) February 27, 2025
RFK Jr’s MAHA effort has been hammering home a critical point: what we cook our food in matters just as much as the food itself.
Those seed oils? They’re inflammatory nightmares. They oxidize at high temperatures, creating compounds linked to chronic inflammation, heart disease, and a laundry list of health problems that would make your doctor weep.
Beef tallow, by contrast, is surprisingly stable at high temperatures. It doesn’t break down and create those nasty free radicals that turn your french fries into a health hazard.
Plus, it’s rich in nutrients like vitamin A, D, E, and K – something you’re not getting from a vat of industrially processed soybean oil.
This isn’t just a health trend. It’s a return to wisdom our great-grandparents would’ve known instinctively: real food, prepared simply, is usually better than something engineered in a corporate test kitchen.
Some nutrition experts are calling this the “tallow transformation.” Fast food chains aren’t just switching oils; they’re making a statement. They’re acknowledging that maybe, just maybe, the low-fat, high-processed food era was a massive mistake.
Imagine walking into a fast food joint and knowing the food you’re about to eat was cooked in a method our ancestors would recognize. No mysterious industrial processes, no twenty-syllable ingredients. Just good, honest cooking.
Of course, this isn’t a magic bullet. A burger fried in beef tallow is still a burger. But it’s a step – a significant one – towards more transparent, traditional food preparation.
RFK Jr might have sparked the conversation, but consumers are driving the change. People are reading labels, asking questions, demanding better. They’re tired of being sold processed junk masquerading as food.
The tallow revolution is more than a cooking method. It’s a rebellion against corporate food engineering, a middle finger to decades of nutritional misinformation. It’s about reclaiming our food’s integrity, one crispy, golden-brown french fry at a time.
So the next time you’re munching on some fries, ask yourself: Do you know what they’re fried in? Because suddenly, that matters more than ever.
