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Food
Despite its porcine origin, lard has no characteristic porky flavor. Before the advent of vegetable shortening, bakers preferred lard to costly butter for baking tender cookies, cakes and pies. Unlike butter, lard keeps well at room temperature, staying solid and inert until the cook needs it. The saturated animal fat developed a reputation for being unhealthy, but as it contains 42 percent saturated fat and no trans-fats, its nutritional profile compares to solid vegetable fats.
Lamp Oil
Rendered lard consists almost entirely of pure fat. From thousands of years ago until electric lighting spread throughout urban centers, households and businesses relied on oil-burning lamps or candles for illumination. Other animal-based oils contain high proportions of water or nonfatty solids that either made them unsuitable for lamps or burned with an odorous, oily smoke. Lard lamps gave late nights a relatively smoke-free glow that cost less than whale oil or beeswax.
Soap
Saponification, the chemical process that turns fat and lye into soap, works especially well for pure fats like lard. As rendered pig fat has little smell or color of its own, the soap maker could add color and fragrance to the odorless white soap. Lard played a role in more than just personal hygiene; using soap to clean clothing, wash dishes and scrub surfaces reduces bacterial growth. Keeping cleaner meant staying healthier for early soap users.
Lubricant
Mineral oils and synthetic, silicone-based lubricants fill most industrial lubricant roles today, but before factories had access to these more durable and specialized products, animal fats did the same job. Lard helped wooden and metal gears turn easily, kept fabric belts moving smoothly over their rollers and made metal fabrication jobs less arduous. Industries that required food-grade lubricants used pig fat well into the automobile age.
Biodiesel
As previous generations who worked at night thanks to the light from a lard-oil lamp knew, lard burns. Substances that burn well and cleanly have potential value as fuel. Manufacturers of biodiesel produce the fuel from vegetable oils, algae, cooking waste and animal fats, including pig fat. Biodiesel fuels trains, trucks and cars. It also provides heat in the winter. This derived diesel fuel is biodegradable and nontoxic.