What is lard?

What exactly is lard? I know more healthier restaurants don't use it, is it bad for you? Does it make food taste better?

Lard refers to pig fat in both its rendered and unrendered forms. Lard was commonly used in many cuisines as a cooking fat or shortening, or as a spread similar to butter. Its use in contemporary cuisine has diminished because of health concerns posed by its saturated fat content and its often negative image; however, many contemporary cooks and bakers favor it over other fats for select uses. The culinary qualities of lard vary somewhat depending on the part of the pig the fat was taken from and how the lard was processed. Lard is still commonly used to manufacture soap.

Lard is another word for fat. Yes, it can be bad for you if you eat excessive amounts of food thats has been cooked in it. It's fine though every once in a while you need some fatty foods in you diet. It does make some foods taste better, also.
~Alanna

Yes, lard is fat and it is very very bad for you. Unhealthy. If you want some fat in your body or feel you have to have it, use coldpresed 1st grade extra virgin olive oil or else coconut oil.

Lard still makes the very flakiest pie crusts and there are a few other dishes that just aren't as good using anything but lard.

Lard is considered an unhealthy fat because it contains saturated (solid at room temperature) fats. People think of lard as the unhealthiest of fats but butter has more saturated and less unsaturated fat than lard. For decades we were told that animal fats like lard and butter were unhealthy and to substitute hydroginated vegetable oils like Crisco or margarine. Now the best research indicates that partially hydrogenated oil is even worse for us than saturated animal fat.

I don't think lard is good for you but I don't think it is poison either. You should probably avoid it but a little here and there probably won't hurt you. I don't think that it is significantly better or worse than any other animal fat.

lard is made when people take hog fat and cook it over fire for quite a while they mostly use an iorn kettle ihave done it often I'm a tennessee hillbilly we use to raise pigs for food country ham sausage bacon the meat that is left after the lard cooks out is called chittlings southern folks put it in corn meal for corn bread hope this helps

fat