In America, the cooking fat you use — lard, butter, shortening, oil — has long been a signifier of health, virtue, and class. What is about fat that gets us so riled up? Reporter Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong looks at four battles over cooking fats in America over the last 150 years, starting with lard vs. Crisco, all the way to our current panic over seed oils. What do these battles tell us about food culture, and about America?

This episode was reported by Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong. The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, Jared O'Connell, Morgan Johnson, and Jazzmin Sutherland.

Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:

• "Shake And Bake" by Hayley Briasco
• "Iced Coffee" Josh Leininger
• "After Party" by Brannu
• 'Loud" by Bira
• "Intrepid Stratagem" by Stephen Sullivan
• "Marimba Feel Good" by Stephen Sullivan

Photo courtesy of Mattie Hagedorn/flickr licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. 

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.