UK NEWS

LET'S GET BACK TO COOKING WITH LARD, SAYS CHEF ANTHONY

Antony Worrall Thompson: Cooks with lard

Thursday April 3,2008

By Louise Barnett

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(3)

DAILY Express celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has shocked food faddists by saying it is okay to use lard in restaurants.

Once a staple ingredient of British food, lard has fallen out of favour in recent years because of health concerns.

It is high in saturated fat, which experts say should be avoided.

But some food lovers have come out in favour of cooking with lard as an occasional treat.

Now Daily Express columnist Mr Worrall Thompson has said: “Restaurants for me are not about watching your figure – they are about having fun and enjoying yourself, for the average member of the public.”

He uses lard – a type of pig fat – for cooking roast potatoes, stews and casseroles in restaurants.

He said: “I am not supporting the use of it in the home, for making pastry or necessarily cooking every single meal in it.

“It is a saturated fat. We should be cutting back but as far as I am concerned in a restaurant, where people are there to enjoy themselves, it shouldn’t matter too much.

“My view is that it is a perfectly good natural product that should be used in moderation.

“I definitely cook in it myself and have never had a problem with it.”

A Spanish pig lard called Iberico fat recently won the backing of food magazine Delicious.

The magazine’s editor Matthew Drennan said Iberico fat, made from Spanish pigs reared on acorns, gave roast potatoes a perfect finish.

Stuart Oetzmann, whose Norfolk-based Metfield bakery supplies top London stores, is also a lard supporter.

He said: “You don’t have to use lard all the time – but things taste so much better if lard has been used.”

John Briffa, a top nutritional doctor, claims that lard has an undeserved reputation and science has shown that it is not unhealthy.

He said: “The majority of studies do not show a link between animal fat and heart disease.”

The British Nutrition Foundation says lard from pig fat has around 99g of fat per 100g.

And official watchdog the Food Standards Agency warns: “Eating foods high in saturated fat increases the risk of developing heart disease because it can raise cholesterol levels.”

My view is that it is a perfectly good natural product that should be used in moderation

Antony Worrall Thompson

LARDY LARDY

03.04.08, 12:15pm

Never stopped using the stuff ... I have a very healthy BMI .. courses for horses, of course.

• Posted by: Expressdownunder • Report Comment

COOKING WITH LARD

03.04.08, 9:32am

for goodness sake let's get back to good old fashioned cooking, and less of the diet this and the diet that, there were a damned sight less " overweight " people 20/30yrs ago, my daughter aged 41yrs old as been sectioned twice
for anorexia down to four and a half stone each time, she is just about holding her own now at seven to seven and half stone but still as trouble "eating" her partner is also paranoid about his eating but weighs in at 17 and a half stone but is addicted to beefburgers, Kentucky, and diet coke, my reasoning about all things is common sense and everything in moderation

• Posted by: ANNR • Report Comment

SO WHAT AS EDD BALLS WOULD SAY

03.04.08, 5:35am

Everything thats enjoyable is illegal, immoral, or fattening.
Do you want a long miserable thin life or a fun filled short fat happy one. give me the latter.

• Posted by: Youngpeter • Report Comment