Many Hongkongers would not think twice about the amount of butter on their toast, but would recoil at the thought of adding lard, or rendered pork fat, to a dish.
People in the city have, for years, been brought up to believe that lard is an unhealthy fat, but recent science has begun to look differently at various kinds of fat. As a result, lard is making a comeback on menus.
The historical vilification of animal fats stems from American physiologist Ancel Keys’ long-running Seven Countries Study, which began in 1958 and linked saturated fat consumption to elevated serum cholesterol and coronary mortality.
American doctor and researcher Scott Grundy’s clinical trials in the 1980s validated this, confirming that replacing saturated fats with MUFAs successfully lowered harmful cholesterol while preserving good cholesterol.