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I stumbled upon this extremely fascinating bit of information and want to try this old trick for prolonging the shelf life of some oils and fats.
While it is true that heat shortens the shelf life of finished oils, this may be a good thing to include in the process of making homemade lard, tallow, and rendering other fats to extend their shelf life.
https://herbcraft.org/slipperyelm.html
To summarize Jim McDonald's post:
He noticed this entry in the King's American Dispensatory, 1898: https://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/kings/ulmus.html
Excerpted from "Chemical Composition:"
"Dr. C. W. Wright states that, when fatty substances are heated for several minutes with slippery-elm bark, in the proportion of 1 part of the bark to 128 parts of the fat, and then the fat be removed by straining, this has acquired the property of not undergoing rancidity (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1852, p. 180)."
Jim McDonald said that he "inquired on Henriette Kress's herblist, and was delighted to get a reply back from Susan Strasser (who I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a nice lunch & nicer conversation with at the International Herb Symposium), who wrote back, saying, "I have the AJP from 1852 from the American Periodical Series, a database that the university I work for subscribes to. Here's the gist of the article, reprinted from the Western Lancet:
"Charles W. Wright, MD, of Cincinnati was talking to an early settler about what the Indians living there used to do, and mentioned that they had preserved bear's fat by frying it out, then melting it again with slippery elm bark, "finely divided," either fresh or dry, about one drachm of bark to a pound of fat. "When these substances are heated together for a few minutes, the bark shrinks and gradually subsides after which the fat is strained off an put aside for use."
He tried it with some other fats, and says it worked every time. "One specimen of butter, (an article which it is well known becomes rancid sooner than any other kind of fat,) prepared in this way more than a year ago, is as sweet, and as free from disagreeable odor, as the day it was made, having been exposed all this time to the atmosphere and change of temperature. Hog's lard may be preserved in the same manner.
This fact will be of much importance in the preparation of cerates and ointments, which can be thus protected from rancidity."
.......end of quotes.......
Hmmm... I wonder what results I would get if I prepared a concentrated "oil of slippery elm" and added this to a quantity of cold oil to extend its shelf life?
@Peanut and other herbalists, what do you think?
While it is true that heat shortens the shelf life of finished oils, this may be a good thing to include in the process of making homemade lard, tallow, and rendering other fats to extend their shelf life.
https://herbcraft.org/slipperyelm.html
To summarize Jim McDonald's post:
He noticed this entry in the King's American Dispensatory, 1898: https://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/kings/ulmus.html
Excerpted from "Chemical Composition:"
"Dr. C. W. Wright states that, when fatty substances are heated for several minutes with slippery-elm bark, in the proportion of 1 part of the bark to 128 parts of the fat, and then the fat be removed by straining, this has acquired the property of not undergoing rancidity (Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1852, p. 180)."
Jim McDonald said that he "inquired on Henriette Kress's herblist, and was delighted to get a reply back from Susan Strasser (who I had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a nice lunch & nicer conversation with at the International Herb Symposium), who wrote back, saying, "I have the AJP from 1852 from the American Periodical Series, a database that the university I work for subscribes to. Here's the gist of the article, reprinted from the Western Lancet:
"Charles W. Wright, MD, of Cincinnati was talking to an early settler about what the Indians living there used to do, and mentioned that they had preserved bear's fat by frying it out, then melting it again with slippery elm bark, "finely divided," either fresh or dry, about one drachm of bark to a pound of fat. "When these substances are heated together for a few minutes, the bark shrinks and gradually subsides after which the fat is strained off an put aside for use."
He tried it with some other fats, and says it worked every time. "One specimen of butter, (an article which it is well known becomes rancid sooner than any other kind of fat,) prepared in this way more than a year ago, is as sweet, and as free from disagreeable odor, as the day it was made, having been exposed all this time to the atmosphere and change of temperature. Hog's lard may be preserved in the same manner.
This fact will be of much importance in the preparation of cerates and ointments, which can be thus protected from rancidity."
.......end of quotes.......
Hmmm... I wonder what results I would get if I prepared a concentrated "oil of slippery elm" and added this to a quantity of cold oil to extend its shelf life?
@Peanut and other herbalists, what do you think?
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