Lard and Crisco are closer in nutritional profile than most people assume, and neither one is a clear winner across the board. The real answer depends on what you’re cooking, how much you’re using, and which specific health concerns matter most to you. Both are solid fats with roughly similar calorie counts (around 115 calories per tablespoon), but they differ meaningfully in how they’re made, what micronutrients they carry, and how your body processes them.
What’s Actually in Each Fat
Lard is rendered pig fat. At its simplest, it’s a single-ingredient product with no additives, preservatives, or chemical modifications. The fat composition leans toward monounsaturated fat (the same type that dominates olive oil), with smaller portions of saturated and polyunsaturated fat. Lard also contains cholesterol, since it’s an animal product, and provides fat-soluble vitamins. Some research suggests pastured lard can contain up to 250 IU of vitamin D per 100 grams, which would make it one of the richer food sources of a nutrient many people are deficient in. That number likely varies depending on whether the pigs had sun exposure and what they ate.
Crisco, the most recognizable vegetable shortening brand, is made from soybean and palm oils that have been fully hydrogenated and then blended. Hydrogenation is a chemical process that turns liquid oils into solid fat by adding hydrogen atoms to the fatty acid chains. Modern Crisco contains no cholesterol, no vitamin D, and no other fat-soluble vitamins in meaningful amounts. It does contain small amounts of synthetic additives like antioxidant preservatives that prevent the oil from going rancid on the shelf.
The Trans Fat Question
For decades, the strongest argument against Crisco was its trans fat content. Original Crisco was made with partially hydrogenated oils, which created artificial trans fats linked to heart disease, stroke, and cell membrane dysfunction. The FDA completely banned partially hydrogenated oils in the United States as of January 2020, and Crisco reformulated well before that deadline.
Modern Crisco uses fully hydrogenated oils instead of partially hydrogenated ones, which eliminates trans fats from the product. This was a significant improvement. If you’re comparing today’s Crisco to lard, trans fats are no longer part of the equation. Lard naturally contains trace amounts of trans fat (as all animal fats do), but in quantities too small to be nutritionally relevant.
How Processing Changes the Fat
Even without trans fats, the processing behind vegetable shortening raises questions that don’t apply to lard. Full hydrogenation converts unsaturated fats into saturated ones, and the resulting fat then undergoes interesterification, a process that rearranges fatty acid molecules on their chemical backbone to achieve the right texture and melting point. Research has found that interesterification can reduce a fat’s oxidative stability and increase certain breakdown compounds. In practical terms, this means the fat may be somewhat less stable than its natural counterpart, even though it looks and performs similarly in cooking.
Lard, by contrast, requires minimal processing. You can render it at home by slowly heating pork fat until the liquid separates from the solid tissue. Commercial lard sometimes includes preservatives like BHT to extend shelf life, but many brands sell it in pure form. The fatty acid structure remains exactly as it existed in the animal, with no chemical rearrangement.
Saturated Fat and Heart Health
Both lard and Crisco contain saturated fat, which is the nutrient most associated with increased LDL cholesterol. Lard is roughly 40% saturated fat, while Crisco’s saturated fat content sits around 25% (though this varies by formulation). On this metric alone, Crisco has an edge.
However, lard’s fat profile is more complex than its saturated fat percentage suggests. Nearly 45% of lard’s fat is monounsaturated, primarily oleic acid. This is the same fatty acid credited with many of olive oil’s cardiovascular benefits. Crisco contains less monounsaturated fat and more polyunsaturated fat, which is generally considered heart-friendly but is also more prone to oxidation when heated.
Animal studies have linked high-lard diets to obesity, insulin resistance, and elevated leptin levels. But these studies typically use lard as a tool to create an extremely high-fat diet in lab animals, not to simulate the tablespoon or two a home cook might use to fry eggs or make pie crust. The dose matters enormously.
Performance at High Heat
Smoke point matters because when a fat begins to smoke, it breaks down and releases harmful compounds. Solid Crisco has a smoke point around 360 to 370°F, though some formulations (particularly liquid and canola-based versions) reach 400 to 450°F. Lard’s smoke point is generally reported in the range of 370 to 400°F, putting it slightly above solid Crisco for most high-heat cooking applications like frying.
Lard’s relatively high proportion of saturated and monounsaturated fat also makes it chemically stable at cooking temperatures. Polyunsaturated fats, which are more abundant in vegetable shortening, are more susceptible to oxidation when exposed to heat. This means lard may produce fewer harmful oxidation byproducts during prolonged frying or roasting, even when both fats are used below their smoke points.
Where Each Fat Has the Advantage
- Nutrient content: Lard wins. It provides vitamin D and other fat-soluble nutrients that vegetable shortening lacks entirely. If you’re going to use a solid fat, getting some micronutrients along with it is a reasonable bonus.
- Minimal processing: Lard wins. Pure rendered lard is a single-ingredient fat with no chemical modification. Crisco requires hydrogenation, interesterification, and added preservatives.
- Lower saturated fat: Crisco wins. If your primary concern is keeping saturated fat intake low, Crisco delivers fewer grams per tablespoon.
- Dietary restrictions: Crisco wins for anyone avoiding animal products or following religious dietary laws that prohibit pork.
- High-heat stability: Lard has a slight edge due to its fat composition, which resists oxidation better than the polyunsaturated fats in shortening.
- Shelf life: Crisco wins. Its added antioxidants and fully saturated structure keep it stable in the pantry for months longer than lard, which benefits from refrigeration.
The Practical Bottom Line
If you use either fat in typical home-cooking amounts (a tablespoon here, a few tablespoons in a pie crust), the health differences between lard and Crisco are modest. Neither is a health food, and neither is poison. The old case against lard was built partly on the assumption that Crisco’s vegetable origins made it automatically superior, an idea that lost credibility once we understood how damaging the trans fats in original Crisco formulations actually were.
Today’s reformulated Crisco is a meaningfully better product than it was 20 years ago. But lard offers something Crisco still can’t match: a simple, minimally processed fat with built-in micronutrients and strong cooking stability. For people who eat animal products and aren’t managing specific cholesterol concerns, lard is a reasonable choice that performs well in the kitchen without the chemical processing that shortening requires.