Hey all, I've been lurking and just collecting digests lately. I'm on a
number of similar lists and usually can guarantee when a topic
comes up on one, it'll surface on a couple of others. Surprise when
I read this soap making thread appear only on SANET.
Here's my (very UNofficial) take on the topic. I make soap using
goat milk and oils and essential oils for scents. When I started, I
used lard (Manteca) because it's pretty reasonable, makes a very
creamy soap that actually lathers well, and overall, gives a pleasing
end product.
BUT, HOWEVER, and all that, the more I read and research, the
less I'm inclined to put animal fats into my soaps. Granted, if I were
butchering large numbers of livestock we raised ourselves, I'd be
saving the lard (hog fat) tallow, and suets for my soaps. I know how
it's grown and know exactly what feedstuffs the animals had prior
to slaughter. Why not do it anyhow? Because 99.9% of the
commercially available animal fats come from CAFO hogs and
feedlot steers. Toxins, antibiotics and other 'residue' are more often
sluffed off into the fat deposits in livestock, or an accumulation
there is less likely to be reasborbed or passed on before slaughter.
(Also organ meats, too, are more of a repository for drug overuse
than the muscle tissue would be.)
So, though there is probably no scientific data to back my 'theory',
I still choose to use vegetable oils more than animal fats in my
soaps. People look to hand crafted soaps as something they can
do for themselves that is natural and not of commercial origin. I'd
rather not have that image tarnished because of the use of impure
lard from commercial sources.
Martha, (Texas)
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/5505/index.html
See TexCat Web page:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/5505/Texcat_home.html
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