Comparing Suet & Muscular Fat
Friday, August 7, 2009 at 9:47PM 
Let me start by forewarning my valued reader that the goal of this post is to compare suet and muscle fat from under a nutritional lens. I will not campaign at the conclusion that one shouldn't be eaten since there are many accounts of healthy people surviving on either with excellent health. I will invoke my personal experience in the matter with my metabolically challenged, carbohydrate damaged, 24 year old body.
The shaky foundation of this post rests with the information from Nutritiondata.com. I can find no other internet source that specifies the vitamin, mineral and EFA (essential fatty acid) content in each fat. Another problem with the comparison is evaluating rendered muscular fat and un-rendered raw suet. We can also assume that the nutrition facts reflect the vitamin, mineral and EFA status of a grain fed cow, not a grass fed cow, which would be richer in all categories.
With all this in mind, it should still be a fun post. I've switched between the two fats for pemmican making and have had moderate experience with both of them. My feeling on each fat is purely anecdotal and hopefully some information can be extrapolated by the reader.
Suet & Muscle Fat
Suet and muscle fat are both forms of animal fat that can be rendered - a process that separarates the fats from other organic materials. When rendered, both fats adopt the name "tallow". Suet, a harder fat, comes from the kidneys and the loins of the animal whereas muscular fat, a softer fat, comes from in-between the muscles. Both forms of fat are extremely stable, due to their high saturation and low levels of polyunsaturated fats.
Tallow and saturated animal fats in general have been mal-aligned with poor health for the last half decade. Due to some unscrupulous research, the term "artery-clogging saturated fat" has become ubiquitous with the publics perception of poor health. Luckily my readers and those seeking honest answers don't always accept conventional dietary wisdom. By examining our own bodies, we find that our body fat is saturated. How could mother nature take such a wrong turn? Head over to Mark's Daily Apple if you're interested in a great overview behind the saturated fat myth.
For a variety of reasons, it's a good idea for the carnivorous eater to have extra fat on hand. Whether you get it from butcher, Slanker's, or US Wellness, extra fat is nice to have around for pemmican making and adding to your meals. Both fats share similar attributes with some slight variations, let's take detailed look at both of them.
Suet
Suet is notorious for tasting like candle wax. I seem to be the odd man on the issue of taste, but I really like it. Suet also sets up like a rock when at room temperature and is due to the higher saturated fat content. This makes it the perfect travel companion, since it has a higher melting temperature than the softer muscle fat.
Suet has a rich history with the Plains and Cree Native Americans who are the godfathers of pemmican. In the book The Fat Of The Land the author Stefansson describes many accounts of the Native Americans living off pemmican in summer as well as winter months.
Muscle Fat
Muscle fat, when rendered, has the consistency of butter, and is malleable at room temperature. Muscle fat does not setup as hard as suet and has a lower melting temperature. I've found that on a warm day, muscle fat based pemmican is vulnerable to becoming a bag of mush if exposed to heat for too long.
It's an interesting side note that tallow was often used in cooking during the 1900's. It was in the 60's and 70's during the advent of heart disease that vegetable oils (canola, Crisco) became popular.
Judging from both food data and turn-of-the-century cookbooks, the American diet in 1900 was a rich one-with at least 35 to 40 percent of calories coming from fats, mostly dairy fats in the form of butter, cream, whole milk and eggs. Salad dressing recipes usually called for egg yolks or cream; only occasionally for olive oil. Lard or tallow served for frying; rich dishes like head cheese and scrapple contributed additional saturated fats during an era when cancer and heart disease were rare. Butter substitutes made up only a small portion of the American diet, and these margarines were blended from coconut oil, animal tallow and lard, all rich in natural saturates.
Nutrition
This is where things get interesting. The first difference I noticed between the two fats is that suet contains more saturated fat than muscle fat. The higher saturation level of suet renders it slightly less vulnerable to bacteria and mold. Perhaps this is why Native Americans, explorers and fur-traders used a mixture of suet and muscle fat during the pioneer movement of the nineteenth century.
While there is an increase in saturation we also see a decrease in cholesterol. Like saturated fat, cholesterol gets a bum wrap based on bogus science. For optimal hormonal production, wellbeing, and longevity, higher amounts of cholesterol are desired.
Your body makes saturated fats, and your body makes cholesterol-about 2000 mg per day. In general, cholesterol that the average American absorbs from food amounts to about 100 mg per day. So, in theory, even reducing animal foods to zero will result in a mere 5% decrease in the total amount of cholesterol available to the blood and tissues. In practice, such a diet is likely to deprive the body of the substrates it needs to manufacture enough of this vital substance; for cholesterol, like saturated fats, stands unfairly accused.
It acts as a precursor to vital corticosteroids, hormones that help us deal with stress and protect the body against heart disease and cancer; and to the sex hormones like androgen, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone; it is a precursor to vitamin D, a vital fat-soluble vitamin needed for healthy bones and nervous system, proper growth, mineral metabolism, muscle tone, insulin production, reproduction and immune system function; it is the precursor to bile salts, which are vital for digestion and assimilation of fats in the diet.
Recent research shows that cholesterol acts as an antioxidant.60 This is the likely explanation for the fact that cholesterol levels go up with age. As an antioxidant, cholesterol protects us against free radical damage that leads to heart disease and cancer. Cholesterol is the body's repair substance, manufactured in large amounts when the arteries are irritated or weak. Blaming heart disease on high serum cholesterol levels is like blaming firemen who have come to put out a fire for starting the blaze.
Vitamins & Minerals
When vitamins and minerals are compared, the data reveals that muscular fat seems to pack more of a nutritional punch. The largest variation between the two is the super abundance of the b-vitamin, choline found in muscular fat. Choline is a key component of many fat-containing structures in cell membranes, whose flexibility and integrity depend on adequate supplies of choline. Two fat-like molecules in the brain, phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin, account for an unusually high percentage of the brains total mass, so choline is particularly important for brain function and mental integrity.
It's not far fetched to suggest that muscle fat, with it's higher choline content, is probably easier to digest as well. Choline in particular helps the body assimilate fat and move it out of the liver and into the bile. Those with low choline status are notorious for developing cirrhosis, or fatty liver disease.
In theory the more choline available would also allow for higher concentrations of the the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Choline is the key component of acetylcholine, which is is the bodies primary chemical means of sending messages between nerves and muscles. It's often thought of as the "smart neurotransmitter", being involved in cognitive function and critical thinking.
Vitamin E is also higher in the muscular fat. Often used in skin care products, vitamin E has a hand in promoting healthy skin, hair, and a strong immune system.
Vitamin K the latest vogue vitamin is non existent in the muscle fat, but suet contains about 3.6mcg. Here is a rundown on the current research being done on vitamin K from Mark's Daily Apple.
"K2 appears to be especially key in maintaining bone mineralization and limiting the formation and lifespan of osteoclasts, cells which break down bone. Researchers are increasingly optimistic about K2’s potential for those with or at risk for osteoporosis but are looking to further studies to confirm this association. (Incidentally, K1 alone has not shown the same effectiveness for those with osteoporosis.) In the meantime, other research suggests that K2 may aid cardiovascular health as well by helping prevent or even reverse arterial calcification, a known contributor to cardiovascular disease. But that’s not all. Researchers are also looking at K2 (specifically MK-4) as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis. And, wait, there’s more! Researchers are also examining the potential of K2 in the prevention of prostate cancer and in the complementary treatment of leukemia and lung cancer."
Anti-fungal Properties
Suet and muscular fat are rich sources of essential fatty acids, especially lauric and oleic acid, which both have strong antifungal and antimicrobial properties. Research shows that both oleic and lauric acids are effective in killing the fungal actions of candida (can-di-duh) as well as halting its systemic progress.
Both fats contain oleic and lauric acid. There is roughly 7 grams more oleic acid in muscular fat than suet and 800 milligrams more of lauric acid respectively.
Oleic Acid Content (100g)
(muscle fat)
(suet)
Lauric Acid Content (100g)
(muscle fat)
(suet)
Conclusion
The idea behind this post was inspired by the always vibrant Delfuego. While on the Zeroing In On Health Forum, Delfuego mentioned that his wife beat candida as well as lyme disease by eating an exclusive pemmican diet. Starting with suet they soon switched to muscle fat with better results. As for me I think I like a mixture of both. A week ago I prepared my first batch of pemmican with both suet and muscle fat, and It's never tasted so good. Even with the slight absurdity of the source material, we can begin to see the differences between suet and muscle fat. Both can sustain health indefinitely while each have slight advantages in nutrition and travel viability.
Please comment with any experiences or thoughts on suet and muscle fat!
Pemmican 
Reader Comments (30)
Hi Dan. I make my pemmican with about half of each type of fat. It is still solid at about 105F, and tastes better than rendered suet only. I've tried only suet, and for some reason it doesn't digest as well for me at times, and not at all for my wife. All muscle fat tastes the best, but will not have as long a shelf life.
There is 1 reference to the mixing of the 2 fats together for pemmican in the book "Fat of the Land". The comment seems from someone who was knowledgeable about making it, rather than a mention from a person that observed the making of it once or twice. All other descriptions say either rendered hard fat mixed with dried pounded meat, or just rendered fat and dried meat. Also, since the fat was so valuable, I can't see how the natives would not have used both, since it would still have great keeping qualities, taste better, digest more easily, and there would be more fat to work with. Rendered suet will melt about 120 to 125F. A 50% mixture of both fats melts at about 100 to 105F. Still within the range of staying solid on most days due to the thermal mass of 90 lb bags of pemmican averaging out the extremes of day and night temperatures.
I have some 5 year old pemmican made from muscle fat only. It is quite soft at room temperature, but does not smell off in any way, and in fact tastes like it was made only days before. This is of course due more to modern drying and rendering techniques and tools that I have available to me. I can also keep it dry and at a relatively stable temperature year round.
By the way, I looked at your latest pics and blog of pemmican making. It looks great and I believe your pemmican is done right.
Tom
Thanks for reading Tom,
As always thanks for the great post. Like your wife, I have slight problems with digesting soley suet. A mixture of muscle fat and suet seems not only to taste great, but holds together in different climates.
It's taken me quite some time to get to this point. I've ruined many batches trying to figure out all the small things to make proper pemmican. I think drying the meat thoroughly was the toughest lesson I learned. I recently purchased an LEM 10 tray, so now I just leave the meat in there for a couple of days at 90-100F until snaps in half. The dryer the meat, the easier it is to grind as well.
Danny,
Thanks for an informative discussion of suet and tallow. When making my next batch of pemmican, I will try mixing 50/50 suet and tallow. Up till now, I've only used suet when making pemmican.
When buying fat from the on-line grass-fed vendors, are you able to specify the type of fat you want? I've order from Slanker's and others and have always received suet. Perhaps I should just go to my local butcher and buy fat trimmings?
Thanks for reading Nyker,
Yeah, Slanker's doesn't seem to have muscle fat. Luckily you can still order the huge 36lb buckets of tallow from US Wellness (if you trust their rendering process). The butcher is probably your best bet, if you want to do it yourself.
Hi, just wanted to add that I made pemmican using clarified butter. It tastes amazing. By the way Dan, I wanted to say thanks so much fr your amazing blog and sharing your trials and tribulations wit the rest of us.
I made my first 10$ jerky drier this weekend so i can start upping my own pemmican factory. I would like to put out the idea on the table to have a pemmican-only recipe site for sharing and compiling pemican recipes.
Also, how much meat and fat do you go through in a day? how much pemican have you gone through in a day?
Dear Danny,
I find this post absolutely fascinating. Your overall consensus on "suet" is very intriguing! I was wondering, kind of a long shot, that you may perhaps write a piece on yourself? Include pictures so that I have a face to match to the brilliance of your blog. I am in the newport beach area (cali) and was wondering where you were from? umm yes. I apologize if this weirds you out. I just think that you may be very attractive!
Jenny
Thanks for reading Drifter,
No problem at all. It's fun for me, I'm glad it's useful for you.
The ultimate pemmican recipe is as follows. Grass fed lean and fat in an even ratio, that's it! You can always add berries and other things, but it's not authentic pemmican ;)
I usually eat from 8-10 oz of 70/30 pemmican, and less if I eat out of the 80/20 batch I just made. That ends up being anywhere from ~1600-2000 calories.
Thanks for reading Jenny,
I'm completely flattered. If you want to know more about me you can check out the "About The Author" section on the homepage. I'm sure one of these days I'll add a more thorough bio, but for now it will do. I really appreciate your kind words.
I have been a bit intimidated by the idea of making pemmican or jerky, but I think when I get back to the states I will have to just get in there and try it! meanwhile, I get wonderful beef tallow from our butcher in London which I use for frying eggs and meat. they are all about suet for baking over here--traditional mincemeat pies are made with it. but most people are pretty fat phobic---well the good fats that is. I did not know about the choline in tallow, I had a feeling I was deficient in it, so thanks for the heads up!
Thanks for reading Barbara,
The band was able to visit the UK a couple times on tour. I'm deeply in love with York and Cambridge. "Pre-ZC Danny" used to gorge on naan bread, haha. One time my buddy Grant and I got served naan as big as our torsos!
Danny, this is unrelated, but...what do you use for making this blog? Is this Wordpress?
Hey Drifter,
www.squarespace.com
I'm in love with this service.
Danny....I am at this moment rendering my first batch of muscle fat and will use it to make pemmican. In the past, I only used rendered suet to make pemmican and I got great results. I have a few questions before I proceed to the pemmican phase:
1) Is your pemmican made from muscle/suet mixed tallow stable at room temperature? (i.e., does it remain solid without getting greasy; does it store for long periods of time at room temp? etc)
2) What mix do you use for the muscle vs suet tallow when making pemmican? (is it 50:50?)
Thanks!
Hey Nyker,
I've been mixing them in about a 50/50 ratio. Tom G. mentioned that his 50/50 combo would melt at about 105F.
My mixture seems to be very solid at room temperature. Keep us updated on your results!
Nyker. I use a thermometer to make sure the fat solidifies at above 100F when it is cooling. Sometimes I end up having to add a lttle more rendered suet fat. At times the mixture is more like 60% suet and 40% muscle fat. The fat I get from the butcher varies each time, but generally a 50/50 mix works out to where I want it.
Even when you use suet only, the fat itself has different molecular structures and is more like a mixture of fats, although more of it will be saturated than muscle fat. If suet fat doesn't bother you at all, then make the pemmican with all suet. It will have the longest shelf life of course.
Making sure the fat is rendered to remove all moisture, and the meat as dry as possible is more important than the hardness. I have a batch of pemmican made from soft muscle fat only, that is 5 years old and still good. It sits above my cupboard, so is subjected to a little higher average room temperature, being next to the ceiling. I don't recommend anyone try to keep that type of pemmican for such time period. It's just an example that if it is dry enough, pemmican made with softer muscle fat only, can last a few years under ideal conditions.
Tom
Tom & Danny,
Thanks for the reply.
My first attempt at rendering muscle fat did not go well. I got 19 lbs of muscle fat from a butcher and rendered it in the same manner as I do suet. But this rendered muscle fat never solidified at room temperature! It remained liquid even at 75 degrees. My only thought is that there must have been a very small percentage of saturated fat in this particular batch of muscle fat. I will look for another source for the muscle fat and try again.
Hey Nyker,
Sorry about the bad experience. I can't think of any reason that the fat would have gone south on you, this has never happened to me. I wonder if Tom or Lex can shed some light.
Nyker. I agree. Not very much harder fat in that batch. About a year ago, a friend from work, who also works as a chef on the side, saved a bunch of fat for me from several roasts. I rendered it, and it turned out much as you describe, very soft. He's done this for me several times, but this time it must have been different roasts.
When you get fat from the butcher, he is likely giving you what's available, or maybe he is thinking you wouldn't want the harder stuff. You can specify harder fats, or even show him/her the type of fat you want. There is a strip of fat from the loins about 1 1/2 to 2" thick by 8 to 10" long that they should have available. It is quite solid, waxy, and is almost as hard as suet, yet has lots of beefy flavour. This is excellent for making pemmican. If I get lots of it, I don't mix any suet with it. You may have to ask him to save it for you over several days to get enough. There are also some flat pieces of fat that I get that are quite hard.
Don't throw out the fat. You can still mix it with suet at a 60/40 or 70/30 suet fat to muscle fat, if you like to combine the fats for taste and long shelf life. What I normally do is mix 50/50 of both fats. Sometimes it comes out a little too soft. I check this by using a thermometer while it's cooling. If it is still liquid at 100 F, I heat it up and add more rendered suet until it starts to coagulate at about 105 F.
Danny. I also bought an LEM 10 tray a few months ago at the new Bass Pro that just opened up in Calgary. I like that the thermostat is adjustable down to 90 F ( it will even go lower than the number ). It also has a set number of hours timer or can be left on full time. It tends to rattle a bit, and since it is made of stainless steel can be quite noisy. I can quell the rattle with a heavy frying pan on top. A little annoying, but overall a good dehydrator. I'm able to dehydrate twice as much beef then before.
Tom
Tom -- Thanks again for all the advice. I saved the tallow from my first attempt at rendering muscle fat. As you say, I imagine that I can still mix it with a high percentage of suet tallow and still get solidity at room temperature or above (e.g., 105 degrees). I will definitely ask the butcher for fat from the loins.
As with much else, making the "perfect" pemmican is a process of trial and error. I look forward to the day when I find the right blend for me and also become adept enough to make large batches. It is a time-consuming process, but the benefits are enormous.
Thanks for your great posts Tom. I can't thank you enough for the value that you add.
I really like my LEM dehydrator, much better than the Weston I had purchased a couple months earlier. You're right on about the rattle. Luckily mine sits in the garage so I never hear it.
Nyker,
As you no doubt know pemmican making is all about trial and error. I can't tell you how many poor batches I've made that just weren't up to par. I would say that after 6 months or so, I'm finally getting the hang of it.
Dan. I've been making pemmican for 5 years. It took me a couple of years to figure out most of the quirks. My earlier experiments were months apart because of my disappointment in my product. I'd read about someone else making it, describing how they do it, and how great it tasted, but mine never seemed to measure up to the descriptions of others. But still, I would try again. I would try to read everything I could on how to make it. Sometimes the information posted on the net was incomplete or not even done the right way. It wasn't until 3 years ago when I read the "Bear's" postings on a low carb board that I lowered the drying temperature to 105 F. That's as low as my oven would go and my cheap dehydrator had no heat setting and dried the meat at 140 to 160F. All other "recipes" that I read said 140 or more was best to kill off the bacteria. The recipes failed to mention that the natives did not cook their meat, only sun and air dried it.
There were quite a few failed attempts to speed up the process, and trying to save labour. Lowering the heat more than doubled the drying time. The meat was still a little moist ( though it didn't really feel like it ) and tended to plug up my grinder. I really didn't know how dry it should be because normally beef jerky is still quite bendable. One time I poured hot fat on the dried meat and cooked the pemmican. I burnt fat a couple of times until I figured it should be more strictly monitored. I tried to use the burnt fat because it didn't smell that bad, but the pemmican tasted bad. Another time I boiled the fat with an equal amount of water on the advice of a person on a backpacking forum that claimed it was the best way to purify the suet. Perhaps it is more pure, if you want to make soap and candles that don't smell like beef. The resulting rendered suet smelled more like a chemical than food. And the pemmican I made from it was terrible in taste and really waxy. I ruined 70 lbs of suet and 10 lbs of dried beef because I normally render 50 to 100 lbs at a time and make some pemmican when I have about 10 lbs of meat. From then on, all changes that I figure I'll try out is done on smaller batches. It's disheartening to put in lots of time, money and labour on something that doesn't work out well.
Now that my pemmican is good, it has met all my expectations of original goals. To make a "carry anywhere" food that's convenient when there is nothing suitable to eat wherever I am. Also to make a long shelf life food for any future emergency. The odd time in the past where I got lucky and made a good batch let me know it could be done, and made me persevere. I didn't mind dropping $300 on my dehydrator because I know it will get a lot of mileage. Pemmican is really worth making.
Tom
Tom....I just wanted to report back that I got some nice muscle fat from my butcher. He sells dry-aged porterhouse steaks. When I asked him for muscle fat, he pulled out the slabs of porterhouse steaks that were drying in his refrigerator and pulled off the long piece of fat as you described above. I was able to get 10 lbs from him on this first try. It rendered very nicely and is solid at room temperature (although not as solid as the tallow made from kidney suet).
Separately, I just returned from a business trip in which I brought along pemmican. Some of the pemmican was from a batch in which I used just beef kidney suet and some was from a batch in which I used a mixture of tallow rendered from lamb kidney suet and lamb muscle fat. I definitely preferred the taste of the one with the mixture of lamb kidney suet and muscle fat.
My next level of experimentation will be to vary the ratio of kidney suet to muscle fat. This is all very exciting because it gives me a feeling of independence when I am traveling on business. I am no longer dependent on the offerings of food available at random places in other cities when I have my pemmican with me!
Thanks again for the advice.
For my next batch of pemmican, I will use a mixture of tallow rendered from beef kidney fat and the porterhouse fat as mentioned above.
Nyker. I'm glad it worked out for you. Keep in mind that the properties of the fat will vary sometimes by quite a bit, each time you get some from the butcher, depending on what they are cutting that day. I have rendered suet and muscle fat separate and in different containers. If a mixture of 50/50 isn't quite hard enough, I can add a little more rendered suet from stock. I use a thermometer when it is cooling to make sure the blend is above 100 F. You're preference may be a little more or less. This does require an extra step, but it is hard to fix pemmican if it isn't done quite right.
I have done it before though. I fixed a batch that was too hard and waxy tasting by making another batch of all muscle fat. The hard waxy stuff was scooped into a bowl and put in the dehydrator at 105F for a few hours, just enough to soften it so it could be mixed. It is harder to mix the 2 different pemmican batches together, than it is to just mix melted fat with dried meat. Eventually after lots of stirring and mixing, I was satisfied with the result. I'm just mentioning this because once you have the perfect pemmican, you will probably not want to eat the less than satisfactory stuff that is sitting around. Even a third muscle fat pemmican added with 2/3 suet pemmican will greatly improve the flavour, if you are worried about it ending up too soft with 50/50.
Tom
OK, thanks again for the advice. Currently, I have separate pails of rendered suet and muscle fat, so I can experiment with the mixture as you suggest.
The great thing for me was that on my recent trip, I had pemmican made from 1) just kidney suet and 2) a mixture of kidney suet and muscle fat. I finished the 100% suet ones first and then ate the blended suet/muscle ones after. The taste was far superior in the blended version, which was noticeable because I had been eating the other ones first. On my next trip, I will do the same: eat the 100% suet ones first, etc. Soon, I will be finished with those, so I'll only have and will only make blended versions from that point on.
Thanks again.
Nyker,
I have found that I really like the blend of suet and muscular fat. It keeps better as well, like Tom pointed out.
I'm stoked that pemmican is working on your business trips!