Who Killed The Lard

Comic

What vision comes to mind when I say lard?
We should all learn why lard has fallen from grace. We must uncover, who killed the lard?
Now before lard became associated with motorized shopping cart enthusiasts it was the backbone of delicious cooking for nearly 1000 years!
By clarifying their unwanted pig fat, early 20th century slaughterhouses were able to cheaply produce and market lard.
The fictional novel The Jungle is published in 1906. With graphic detail author Upton Sinclair tells a tale of horrible practices in the meat packing industry.
They would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone.
But when P&G's abundance of cotton seed oil met with E.C. Kayser's mastery of all thing hydrogenation, Crisco was invented!
It is now 1909 and lard has stepped into the ring with a heavy weight. Crisco has now entered the fight.
In order to change the way the public viewed lard, P&G threw a haymaker with a massive advertising campaign.
Crisco had actually contained trans-fats which we now know contribute to the clogging of arteries.
Lard died by the very thing that had catapulted it to stardom. The marketing machine.

If you want to hear more about the rise and fall of lard, check out this amazing podcast produced by Planet Money that inspired me to create this comic. Lard is pretty great but I think getting the chance to illustrate Teddy Roosevelt’s mustache was the highlight of my week. I think the presidential mustache is the symbol of authority and grace our country is missing.

Random

More Stuff!