547

SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT

average perfonnance on their projects of: EMR average-c-Il.S; OSHA Incident Rate-c-LB: and OSHA Lost
Work-day Rale-O.O.

The safety record was accomplished for the most part under fixedprice competitive-bid work. At the completion of each contract, a Con-

tractor Evaluation Report was completed by a representative of the firm. The first and highest performance rating was for safety. The results then were forwarded 10 the contractor. with areas of strengths and weaknesses highlighted. These types of programs can help you to improve your safety

records and help to reduce your construction costs. A typical contractor's qualification profile questionnaire should elicit information on the company's commercial status and work force. and should ask for safety infermation as indicated in the following sheets.

ANIMAL FATS

Edible tallow may be on an upswing

The following article, which /OCllSt!S On prospects for marketing edible tallow, is based all a talk given or the 91h Antwerp Oils and Fats Contact Days by Kent M. Brody, director of imematallow with candles is perhaps best expressed by the ancient London guild of tallow candle makers, the "Worshipful Company or Tallow Chandlers," which dates back to the 14th century. For hundreds or years, people bred fat or "lard-type" hogs. The breeding or rat hogs continued until the I %Os. when interest in a lean pork, sharply reduced demand for lard, and an improved understanding or genetics changed the breeding objective to that of a lean meat-type animal. Before these changes, producers bred fat hogs to yield edible far for cooking, frying and baking. Although tallow was used in oleomargarine invented in France in 1869, lard probably was the more significant ingredient as margarine became popular in the 1880s and early in this century. One can say with some certainty that the consumption of "added fat" in our diet before this century was rather meager by current standards-at least the levels seen in Nonh America and Europe during recent years. "Added fat" refers to table spreads, including butter and lard, and baking and frying fats. The industrial revolution and wars dramatically accelerated the production of vegetable oils for industrial and edible use as the by-product or fiber production, as in the case of cotton. Cottonseed oil. in fact, was the largest edible vegetable oil available in North America before World War European consumption probably was very similar. There are no statistical data on tallow consumption, although, no doubt. several tens of thousands of tons were consumed in one form or another. Beef and tallow production. in large part, have their origins in the Americas and are associated with the Spanish conquest. In Spanish California. for example, the large land-grant holdings were populated with can le. During this era. California had but one industry-c-canle production for hides and fat. Prior to its conquest by the U.S. in 1846, California exported 80,000 cow hides and nearly 70 tons of fat chiefly to Boston "with many of the hides returning to California in the form of shoes and leather products," according to Burnham. The fat was used to manufacture soup. Because the population of California was relatively small before the gold rush of 1849, the carcasses of the cattle killed for hides and fat were usually left on the range to rot. Thus, we can say meal was a byproduct at that time. Gradually, Nonh Americans developed a voracious appetite for beer. relegating hides and tallow to the status of by-products. According to Burnham. the "first combined slaughter and meat-packing operation was established in 1838 at Alton. Illinois, and in 1865 the Chicago stockyard became the leading livestock market." By the tum or this century. cattle were driven and railroaded long distances from the western and mid-western states to city stockyards for slaughter. Conditions in these facilities became
INFORM, Vol. 1. no. 6 (June 1990)

tiona! marker development for the

National Renderers Association. Animal fats were a staple of the human diet for the first million years. plus or minus a hundred thousand years. of human history. The only exception, of course, would be in the diet of religious groups who forbid their consumption. This trend held until perhaps World War" or the early I950s. Edible animal fats first primarily consisted of lard-the fat of pigsand butter in one form or another, During the years before World War II, tallow-the hard fat of bovine animals, sheep and goats-was associated primarily with candles and soap rather than foodstuffs. Perhaps we can refer to this era as "ancient history" because our dietary habits at that time were more like those of ancient history than those of today. Historical perspective According 10 Frank Burnham in "Rendering, The Invisible Industry:' the rendering process. which has evolved over a period of 2,000 years or so. was a direct adjunct of candle making and soap industries until paraffin displaced tallow in candles during the l800s and detergents displaced tallow laundry soap after World War II. Until about 100 years ago. tallow came primarily from sheep and goals rather than from dairy or beef cattle. The association of

II.
During the first decade of this century. Americans consumed about 7.5 kg or butter, 6.5 kg or lard and about 4-5 kg or vegetable oils per capita.

548

ANIMAL FATS
the subject of books and resulted in federal regulations establishing significant constraints on the supply of edible animal fats in the U.S. Since the imposition of the Federal Meal Inspection Act of 1907 and the establishment of a Federal Meat Inspection Service, edible animal fat in the U.S. has taken on a welldefined meaning. For animal fat 10 be sold as an edible product. it must be trimmed our under the supervision of II resident federal government inspeclor and sent to II food quality standard rendering facility, also under resident government supervision. before it can be certified as "edible." Because beef carcasses traditionally were sem in halves or quarters to independent butchers for cutting, this regulation drastically curtailed the supply of tallow available for edible purposes. Because hogs were more apt to be processed at the point of slaughter than beef. more lard than tallow could qualify for edible use. Dietary changes By 1940. vegetable oil consumption had increased about 50% and included "foreign" crops such as soybean oil. Total per capita added-fat consumption then was about 20 kg. Really significant dietary change began to take place during the 1950s and 1960s. With disposable income increasing after World War II, Americans ate in restaurants more frequently. The next development was the growing popularity of the American fast-food industry-an industry that still is having a profound effect on dietary habits around the world. Because the fast-food industry tends to fry everything from the main course to the desserts offered. the demand for frying shortenings increased dramatically as fast food became popular. Meanwhile. butter and lard consumption per capita began an equally dramatic decline because of health concerns. Tn the U.S . butter consumption per capita has decreased to about 2 kg. and lard to 0.5 kg. During the fast-food revolution, a company called Iowa Beef Packers, now called just IBP. built a plant in Dakota City. Nebraska. This initiated a revolution in the U.S. processing
INFORM, Vol. 1, no. 6 (June 1990)

TABLE I U.S. Tallow Production (in metric Ions)

Year Edible Inedible

TOTAL 1.589.630 2.353.895 3.043.862 3.279.370 3.364,283

1959 1969 1978{79 1985/86 1987/88

145.967 (IO'()%) 242.674 (10.3%) 417.626 (13.7%) 712.374 (21.7%) 589.721 (17.5%)

1.443.663 2.111.221 2.626.236 2.566.996 2.774.562

Source: FOIs and Oils. Production. COlISumption and Stocks. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Department of Commerce. M20K report, various issues. industry. Instead of shipping carcasses to the butcher or supermarket, IBP "boxed" the meat. retaining more of the fat for rendering. By 1960. the production of edible tallow had exceeded 146,000 tons, or about 10% of total U.S. tallow and grease production. With increasing production of "boxed beef' and growing demand for frying shonening. edible tallow production exceeded 712,000 IOns-21 % or total tallow production-in 1985 (Table I). Then, public concern over saturated animal fats and cholesterol focused attention on the use of animal fats by the fast-food industry. As a result, many major companies switched to all-vegetable frying oils (that is, to hydrogenated vegetable oil shortenings). By the end of 1988. U.S. demand for edible tallow for use in baking and shortening production had fallen by 71,000 tons, and continues to diminish. As boxed beef production made more and more edible tallow available. edible tallow prices tended to follow soybean oil prices at a discount of several percentage points. When the fast-rood industry lost interest in the product. prices fell dramatically. Now. edible tallow is available at a 38% or more discount to soybean oil. Although leaner beef is being produced in the U.S. today. more fat is being trimmed off at the packing plant. Now, our packing industry is on the verge of another revolution, that of retail ready beef (the trade term is "tray ready" beef). These trends probably will result in a rather stable supply of beer fat for rendering in the foreseeable future for either edible or inedible use. We estimate the current potential production of edible tallow in the U.S. to be around a million tons. although domestic demand is only 300.000 to 400,000 tons. Edible market development What, then. is the future of this high quality food? For nearly three years. the National Renderers Association (NRA) has been at work 10 introduce edible tallow as a household consumer cooking rat in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a poor country which must import over 300,000 Ions of edible fats and oils annually. Per capita consumption of added fats and oils is perhaps only 4-5 kg per capita. Under these circumstances, the health concerns which have depressed demand for animal fats in the U.S. are hardly relevant in Bangladesh. On the other hand. the availability of a comparatively inexpensive. high-quality fat is very relevant. Edible tallow is a white solid fat that resembles high-quality gheeclarified butler oil-which is the preferred cooking oil in Bangladesh and in many other countries from Africa to China. Our work in Bangladesh on this project begnn three years ago. Our representative Ior India and Bangladesh organized commercial baking trials in Dacca to evaluate tallow as a shortening. In addition to successful trials. the baking trade tended to associate our samples with high-quality ghee. The association of tallow with the preferred household cooking oil led us to consider the consumer market. During 1988. we hired the Indian Market Research Bureau in Calcutta. an affiliate of the J. Walter Thompson Group. to carry out a comprehensive con-

549

ANIMAL FATS
sumer market study, Serious floods in Bangladesh that year delayed work on the study. However. it has now been completed and clearly indicates edible tallow should be a highly acceptable household product. Given the producr's discount to soybean oil. it should be price-competitive in the Bangladesh market. NRA now intends to initiute a series of activities to promote edible tallow in that country. However, we believe additional consumer market opportunities exist elsewhere and we intend to explore and pursue these as well. We believe our work can develop significant new markets for this ancient product, now as a high quality but inexpensive consumer-ready food product. Today. we have new technologies on the horizon that hold the promise of a solution to the cholesterol and saturated fat problems associated with tallow. Supercritical fluid extraction is one such technology which may make it possible to selectively remove specific fany acids and cholesterol from tallow. This technology has been proven in the laboratory and wilt be put to commercial trial in the near future. In any case, edible animal fats, beef tallow in particular, really have nowhere to go but up.

INSIDE AOCS

Do consumers understand dietary messages?

Dietary aspects of furs and oils. includ-

ing an update on regulatory issues concerning fats and oils and how to apply dietary guidelines in daily life, was the focus of AOCS North Central Seclion's one-day symposium held March 21 in Hillside, Illinois. Speaker Donald McNamara of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Arizona, said that some of the current diet and health messages, particularly on the effect of dietary cholesterol, "have really gouen out of hand," "We have to get away from convincing the consumer thut every meal is a life-and-death situation.' he said. pointing out that on an individual basis it is not necessarlty dietary cholesterol or fat intake thut will deterrnine how long a person lives. Most cholesterol-related studies show dietary cholesterol generally has lillie effect on serum cholesterol. he said. The problem facing the health and nutrition community is how to communicate scientific findings versus "trendy interventions" to the consumer. according to McNamara, who added that the scientific community "still has a long way to go" even to understand a person's risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Although some studies have shown high mortalily cardiovascular disease with increased intake in saturated fat and calories, different populations consuming the same saturated fats have different rates of hean disease. McNa-

mara said. citing data that showed the Japanese. with a 20% increase in saturated fat intake. had a 12% reduction in CVD incidence. "This fascinates me because the Japanese have done everything wrong and yet they keep getting the right results," he said. Most U.S. consumers do not know how to apply federal recommendations for U.S. residents to reduce fat intake from 37% to 30% of total calories-with 10% each of saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats-and to cut dietary cholesterol to 300 milligrams, McNamara said. Confounding the problem. he said. is that following these recommendations may even raise serum cholesterol in some consumers. "Generalized recommendations do not necessarily help everyone," he said. For instance. studies have shown that low-fat diets generally lower both LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol levels. Although lowering LDL may be good. lowering HDL isn't, Mctcamara said. noting thai low HOL appears to signal CVD risk in women and high LDL appears to signal risk in men. Meanwhile, McNamara said. the following questions remain about the long-term safety of consuming polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA): do PUFA increase cancer risk. suppress immune function, increase platelet aggregation, increase atherosclerosis by reducing HDL levels and promoting LDL oxidauon, promote aging via

and increase risk of gallstones? "These need to be addressed before we recommend that people go out and consume large quantities of canola oil," he said. Asked about fat substitutes, McNamara cautioned that they should not be seen as a panacea to dietary problems: "People are going to add them to the diet. not replace anything. Don't think people make substitutions; they make additions." peaking on the health and biochemical effects of n-S fatty acids. E.A. Emken of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Northern Regional Research Center noted there are confficung data on n-S fatty acids. Health benefits reported to be associatcd with fish oil consumption include lower serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels. lower blood pressure. lower platelet aggregation, improved learning and memory. visual acuity, immune response, decrease in cancer cell growth and hean disease mortality. improvement in rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and decrease in angina attacks. "The problem is (thai) a lot of this is specutauon." Emken said. pointing out that not all studies show such correlations. "If fish consumption was a total answer, we shouldn't see such divergence in data," he said. However. he added that there is general agreement now that fish oil has no significant effect on blood cholesterol levels but does on serum triglyceride
peroxidation

levels.

(Conti/IIII'd

on nl'.":1PUIlI')

INFORM, Vol. 1, no. 6 (June 1990)