Canola oil is generally the healthier choice for everyday cooking, primarily because of its fat composition. It contains far less saturated fat than lard and provides a favorable balance of omega fatty acids that lard lacks. That said, lard isn’t the dietary villain it was once made out to be, and it has a few genuine nutritional advantages worth understanding.
Fat Composition: The Core Difference
The biggest gap between these two fats is their saturated fat content. Lard is roughly 40% saturated fat, while canola oil sits around 7%. Current dietary guidelines recommend keeping saturated fat below 10% of daily calories. A single tablespoon of lard takes a bigger bite out of that budget than the same amount of canola oil.
Canola oil is predominantly monounsaturated fat (about 63%), the same type of fat that gives olive oil its heart-healthy reputation. It also delivers a meaningful amount of the omega-3 fatty acid ALA, giving it an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of roughly 5.6 to 1. That’s unusually good for a cooking oil. For context, corn oil and soybean oil have ratios of 50:1 or higher. Lab research has shown that at canola oil’s ratio, immune cells produce anti-inflammatory signals rather than the pro-inflammatory ones triggered by oils with higher omega-6 ratios.
Lard does contain some monounsaturated fat (about 45%), which is often cited in its defense. But it provides almost no omega-3s, and its high saturated fat content offsets that monounsaturated advantage.
Effects on Cholesterol and Heart Risk
Replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats consistently lowers LDL (“bad”) cholesterol in clinical trials. In a multicenter controlled trial, diets built around canola oil reduced both total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. A DHA-enriched version of canola oil went further, raising HDL (“good”) cholesterol by 3.5%, cutting triglycerides by about 21%, and lowering systolic blood pressure by 3.3 mmHg. Participants on that diet saw their estimated 10-year heart disease risk drop by 19%.
It’s worth noting that dietary cholesterol, the kind found in animal fats like lard, plays a smaller role in your blood cholesterol than previously thought. Your diet only influences about 20% to 30% of the cholesterol circulating in your blood. The bigger driver of elevated LDL is saturated fat intake, which is where lard falls short.
Where Lard Has an Edge
Lard from pastured pigs raised outdoors contains vitamin D3, a nutrient that’s hard to find in plant-based foods. Testing by the Weston A. Price Foundation found that lard from pastured pigs contained up to 10,000 IU of vitamin D per tablespoon, hundreds of times the amount found in lard from conventionally raised hogs. If you’re buying standard grocery-store lard from grain-fed, indoor-raised pigs, you won’t see anywhere near those levels. The pig’s diet and sun exposure directly determine the vitamin D content of its fat.
Lard also has superior oxidative stability when heated. Because it’s higher in saturated fat, it resists breaking down at high temperatures better than canola oil does. Research on the oxidative stability of both fats found that increasing the proportion of lard in a blend consistently extended the time before the fat degraded. In practical terms, lard holds up better for deep frying and high-heat applications where oil is reused over multiple sessions.
The Processing Question
One common concern about canola oil is how it’s made. Most commercial canola oil is extracted using hexane, a chemical solvent, then refined, bleached, and deodorized at temperatures above 200°C (up to 235°C). The finished product contains roughly 0.8 parts per million of residual hexane, a trace amount.
The deodorization step also creates small amounts of trans fats. Trans-fat isomers in canola oil typically account for 0.2% to 1.0% of total fatty acids from one type and up to 3% from another. These levels are low compared to the partially hydrogenated oils that were banned from the food supply, but they aren’t zero. If you use canola oil for commercial-style frying (seven hours a day for seven days at 185°C), total trans fat content can climb from about 2.4% to 3.3%.
Lard, by comparison, requires minimal processing. It’s rendered by slowly heating pork fat until it liquefies, then strained. No solvents, no high-temperature deodorization. For people who prioritize minimal processing, this is a legitimate point in lard’s favor. Cold-pressed or expeller-pressed canola oil exists as a less processed alternative, though it’s harder to find and more expensive.
Erucic Acid: A Settled Concern
Canola oil was originally bred from rapeseed, which naturally contains erucic acid, a fatty acid linked to heart damage in animal studies. Modern canola varieties are required by FDA regulation to contain no more than 2% erucic acid. This is the entire reason “canola” exists as a distinct crop. Any food-grade canola oil on store shelves meets this limit.
Smoke Points and Cooking Use
Refined canola oil has a smoke point of about 204°C (400°F), making it versatile for sautéing, roasting, and most frying. Lard’s smoke point is slightly lower at 190°C (374°F), though still perfectly adequate for pan frying and baking. Expeller-pressed canola oil can range from 190°C to 232°C depending on the brand.
In baking, lard produces flakier pastry crusts than any liquid oil can. This is a texture advantage, not a health one, but it’s the reason many bakers still reach for lard. For everyday cooking where health is the priority, canola oil’s lower saturated fat content and omega-3 contribution make it the stronger default choice.
Choosing Based on Your Priorities
If your goal is cardiovascular health and you’re cooking daily, canola oil is the better baseline fat. Its fat profile aligns with what lowers LDL cholesterol and reduces heart disease risk markers. If you’re concerned about processing, look for expeller-pressed or cold-pressed versions.
Lard earns a place in your kitchen if you’re using it intentionally: for pastry, for occasional high-heat frying, or as a source of fat-soluble vitamins when you can source it from pastured pigs. The key distinction is frequency and quantity. Using lard for a pie crust once a week is a different proposition than cooking every meal in it. Neither fat is poison, but their health profiles aren’t equivalent when used as your primary cooking fat day after day.