No. Lard is graded E for vegetarian and E for vegan because it is fat rendered out of pork. Rendering melts and strains the fat, it does not make it a plant product. This trips people up more often than you would expect, partly because lard looks like shortening and partly because it appears in dishes that read as vegetarian, notably refried beans, tamales and traditional pie and tart pastry.

No. Lard grades A for histamine and A for histamine liberation. Histamine builds up in protein-rich tissue as it is stored and aged, and rendered fat carries almost no protein. The distinction to hold on to is that pork itself behaves very differently once it is cured: bacon, ham, salami and prosciutto are a separate story from the fat rendered out of fresh pork.

Leaf lard is rendered from the soft visceral fat around the pig's kidneys. It is the mildest and whitest grade, with almost no pork flavour, which is why bakers hunt it down for flaky pastry and biscuits. The shelf-stable block sold in most supermarkets is rendered from mixed fat, then usually hydrogenated so it stays solid and shelf-stable at room temperature, with BHA or BHT added to slow rancidity. They cook differently and they are not nutritionally identical.

Technically yes, which is why it survived so long in professional kitchens. Rendered lard has a higher smoke point than butter or extra virgin olive oil, is mostly monounsaturated and saturated so it resists oxidising, and gives fried food a distinctly crisp result. The counterweight is its grade card: E for DASH, E for Mediterranean and E on the anti-inflammatory scale. Frying performance and cardiovascular fit are pulling in opposite directions here.