Related Articles
Last Saturday, Abed “Abe” Ibrahim reached a breaking point. The fledgling restaurateur, who fully embraces the current trend of frying foods in beef tallow rather than the seed oils commonly used throughout popular eateries, even naming his food stall “Tallow” for good measure, took to X and bemoaned how poorly the business was faring more than half a year after its grand opening in February.
“For the last 7 months, I’ve been doing all that I can to make this restaurant successful,” Ibrahim wrote. “Maybe our food isn’t good, but we bring in around $50-$125 per day being open for 7-8 hours. It’s unsustainable and I have my first child on the way.” He continued the thread, writing in several more posts that he had invested “every penny” into the idea and thought customers would appreciate food made without “seed oils, high fructose corn syrup, fillers, preservatives and more,” while “still being affordable by today’s standards.”
Instead of an outpouring of sympathy, Ibrahim was met with hostility, ridicule, and contempt from X users who took the thread viral as they roasted his unsuccessful restaurant. “People are trying to get me kicked out of the building that I’m currently in, they’re telling me they wish I’d die and that they can’t wait to parade when my business fails,” Ibrahim, 28, tells Rolling Stone. “I have no hate towards them. My goal is to turn them into customers.”
Why such a vicious reaction? Because the tallow fad is one of the more unexpected fronts in the American culture war. It’s heavily promoted by right-wing and alternative health influencers who have spread misinformation about the harms of seed oils, not to mention Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump‘s anti-vax health secretary, who has made the return to tallow, or rendered beef fat, a pillar of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. Kennedy dubiously claims that people are “being unknowingly poisoned” by seed oils such as sunflower, corn, and canola oil, and that the saturated fats restaurants ditched in decades past because they contribute to heart disease and other illnesses are, contrary to the evidence, much better for you.
As a result, the online commentariat was swift to assume that Ibrahim’s Tallow restaurant was based on pseudoscience and representative of the “anti-woke” strain of MAGA contrarianism that rejects the liberal consensus on everything from gender to climate change and, of course, nutrition.
Critics on X mocked Ibrahim for operating his food stand within a ShopRite supermarket on the outskirts of suburban Philadelphia, noted his somewhat erratic hours of operation (closed on Sunday, shuttering early at 6:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday), expressed bafflement that he didn’t serve expected standard items like hamburgers, and pointed out that his website lacked basic information about the restaurant. When Ibrahim linked to his Bitcoin wallet at the suggestion of those who wanted to donate cryptocurrency to keep Tallow afloat, detractors further accused him of begging for a handout to prop up a failing and foolish venture. In the end, Ibrahim deleted the thread, fearing that the backlash would harm his landlord, ShopRite.
Ibrahim is baffled by the polarizing politics now attached to tallow. “I think it’s very stupid,” he says. “People are messaging my parents and loved ones saying they want to kill me and my family. All because of what? That I cook in tallow and avoid things like high fructose corn syrup? It is the biggest waste of time.” He adds, “We have much bigger problems in America and all over the world.” Ibrahim further clarifies that he is not a Trump voter, nor was he a fan of the Biden administration. “When it comes to MAHA,” he says, “I don’t necessarily follow it. I recognize that some of what RFK Jr. says is true and some of the stuff he says is false.” Ibrahim cites Kennedy’s alleged use of the dye methylene blue as a health supplement, saying he doesn’t believe it’s a “miracle serum.” As far as the Trump regime’s overall approach to public health, Ibrahim says it is “almost as bad as the last administration,” with officials prioritizing opinions over facts. “The reason I say ‘almost’ is because at least this administration is actually doing something about artificial colors and maybe high fructose corn syrup,” he adds.
For Ibrahim, the tallow concept is personal, not a left or right issue. Growing up in a small town in Illinois, he says, he was always self-conscious about being overweight and eventually began studying nutrition as a hobby around 2016. He soon came to the conclusion that he had to cut out seed oils, artificial colorings, and anything else “that wasn’t a natural ingredient.” He got into cooking in order to maintain his new diet, finding that he “was less sluggish, had more energy, and lost weight” as he stuck to it. (He notes, too, that “the flavor that comes out of [tallow] products are amazing.”)
After he was laid off from his job as a stockbroker in 2022, Ibrahim knew he wanted to make a career change, and he founded Permissibles, a natural ingredients frozen meals company that sells tallow as well. He was offered the kitchen space in ShopRite in 2024, when he pitched the store about getting his products on shelves, but initially passed on the opportunity before taking them up on it this year. Rather than paying a set amount to lease his stall, he pays a percentage of gross income that he declined to disclose. Ibrahim calls the ShopRight management “amazing,” saying they “truly care about others.” Apart from his wife, an emergency room nurse who occasionally helps out on her days off, Ibrahim is the sole employee. He estimates that roughly 75 percent of his business comes from regulars, many coming two or three times a week, with one customer who shows up nearly every day. The real challenge, Ibrahim says, has been attracting a broader clientele.
In that sense, the social media dogpile was actually a net win. Ibrahim received around $8,000 in donations from those who believe in his mission, which he believes would be enough to keep Tallow open for another six months or so at the present rate of sales. And foot traffic, at least for the moment, is definitely up. “It’s been good so far, but the important thing is that it continues to grow when this all dies down,” Ibrahim says. “The numbers we’re seeing now don’t matter too much. The long term is what matters.” He is also working to revamp his website — which “sucks,” he acknowledges — with assistance from new acquaintances who reached out to him on X.
But, while Ibrahim would prefer to think of tallow cooking as apolitical, it’s clear that many of his new supporters skew far-right and consider the elimination of seed oils part of a conservative project. One recent visitor, for example, has a Pepe the Frog avatar on X and routinely posts anti-immigrant and transphobic content. American life in 2025 seems to be largely governed by these quirks of ideological alignment, so that you can’t even sell chicken wings fried a certain way without effectively signaling a connection to some partisan movement. Though in the perilous restaurant game, you have to take whichever customers come your way. And even if Tallow does shut down after this welcome attention dies away, Ibrahim believes in it too much to quit.
“I’d do what I can to reopen it,” he says. “I have no interest in doing anything else.”
