Lard, everyone should be very familiar with it. For today's young people, they may not have a deep understanding of it, but for people born in the 1960s and 1970s, this is simply a rare delicacy. .
At that time, a bowl of lard rice and a bowl of lard noodles were the delicacies of the world. When people bought pork, they didn’t mind a little more fat, because the extra fat could be used to cook it. lard.
In addition to lard itself being a precious condiment, the lard residue left over from boiling oil is also the best snack for children. The white fat meat slowly squeezes out all the oil in the pot and becomes It turned into a small ball of yellow-brown lard residue.
writer You Jin has a very wonderful description of the experience of eating lard residue as a child, "It was extremely crispy, and when I took a light bite, there was a click, and the world collapsed. The small ball of lard was like a fountain, and it suddenly exploded. It shoots out, and the fragrance overflows. "
A lard jar has become a treasure jar in the heart of the whole family, and they are eaten slowly from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Lard nourishes people's poor stomachs and carries the memories of a generation. It is a moving bowl of nostalgia.
Indeed, in that era of scarcity of food and supplies, lard, as a very important dietary fat, played a great role in people's nutritional supplement.
First of all, lard can provide essential fatty acids for the human body. essential fatty acid is not a saturated fatty acid, but a kind of unsaturated fatty acid. fatty acid cannot be synthesized by the body itself and can only be taken in from the diet.
unsaturated fatty acid can improve the body's blood circulation, reduce platelet aggregation, and increase the activity of human brain cells, thereby enhancing people's memory and thinking. At the same time, unsaturated fatty acids also play a certain role in maintaining retinal health and protecting vision.
Secondly, lard can promote the absorption of fat-soluble vitamin . Various vitamins needed by the human body, such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, etc., are insoluble in water but soluble in fat. If the human body wants to digest and absorb them, it must use fat as a carrier.
Again, oils can synthesize important substances needed by the human body, such as prostaglandins , cholesterol and some sex hormones, and oils can also protect the human body's skin and form tissue cells.
Finally, lard can also provide calories. Fat in food is an important source of heat for the human body.
Not only when supplies were scarce in the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, Chinese people have been eating lard for thousands of years, because pigs are one of the earliest animals tamed by humans. In China, pigs It was domesticated by ancestors about 8,000 years ago. In ancient times, pigs were also called "pigs, pigs, dolphins" and so on in different eras.
Therefore, pork and lard have been important sources of animal protein and edible fats for Chinese people since ancient times.
In modern society, people's living standards have improved and there is no longer food shortage. People are not as fond of lard as before. At this time, the older generation began to publicize how good lard is. There are also many rumors on the Internet that lard can not only add color and fragrance to food, but also cure diseases and prolong life. One spoonful of lard is equal to five medicines. It is simply a pig. The oil is regarded as a natural health product. Some online articles said: "The increase in chronic diseases among Chinese residents is related to the lack of lard consumption in recent years."
In fact, this statement is simply nonsense. In fact, on the contrary, In recent decades, chronic diseases in my country have increased The increasing number of patients is closely related to the increasing fat intake.
Although lard has made great contributions in human history, it was a helpless move limited by the age and the level of medical knowledge. cannot exaggerate the value of lard, let alone regard it as a health care product.
The main component of lard is fat. As mentioned above, lard can provide the unsaturated fat needed by the human body. However, the highest proportion of fat in lard is actually saturated fat , about 50%. about.
Saturated fat contains more cholesterol. Once is taken in too much, it is not good for health and will lead to an increase in blood cholesterol , triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol .
And from a scientific point of view, the energy provided by the body's daily intake of fat should not exceed 25% of the total energy required by the body. If the functional proportion of fat exceeds 30%, you will be prone to a variety of chronic diseases, the most common of which is cardiovascular disease.
Therefore, the number of patients with chronic diseases in our country continues to increase. It is not that we eat less lard, but that we eat too much oil and other fats.
Then someone will definitely ask at this time, is lard inedible?
We also start from a scientific point of view, and we can know how much lard is appropriate to consume in a day. In the " Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents " it is mentioned that the saturated fat intake of ordinary adults should not exceed the total daily calories. 10%. Taking an adult who needs 2,000 kcal per day as an example, his daily intake of saturated fat should be controlled at about 22 grams. If all of this is converted into lard, it will be about 56 grams, almost It's an amount of one tael.
When many people see the amount of one or two, they will definitely feel that they can eat lard as much as they want, because they can’t eat so much in a day, but in fact, don’t ignore it. In addition to consuming lard every day, We also eat a variety of other foods , such as meat eggs, milk , nuts, biscuits, and the like. Many people also like to eat fried and creamy foods, and the saturated fat content in these foods is very high. Very high.
Adding lard to these foods, the amount of saturated fat we consume every day is estimated to have far exceeded the amount required by the human body. Therefore, although lard tastes good and has a special flavor, considering its impact on health, it is better to "taste it briefly" in daily cooking. In summary, means that lard can be eaten, but you should still eat as little as possible.
It’s not just lard. In fact, it’s better to eat less animal fats. If we want to eat oil healthily, we can replace animal fats with vegetable fats. Plant-derived oils contain more unsaturated fatty acids. It is relatively beneficial to the human body.
Moreover, different vegetable oils have different fatty acid compositions and different nutritional characteristics. such as olive oil and sunflower oil, has a higher monounsaturated fat content; corn oil and sunflower oil have a higher linoleic acid content. Therefore, in order to balance nutrition, we can consume a variety of cooking oils and frequently change the type of cooking oil.
And during the cooking process, the oil temperature and time must also be controlled. Because too high oil temperature and too long cooking time will also produce a small amount of trans fatty acids .
As the saying goes, many diseases are caused by food, so as long as we eat healthily, we can also "eat" a good body.
References:
Ma Guansheng . Is lard really untouchable? [J], Public Health 2022(01).
Ruan Guangfeng. Don’t eat too much lard.[J], Food Industry 2021(02).
Author: Qiao Mu Proofreading Editor: W
