>>We cook practically everything on lard; some of it on palm oil and sometimes olive oil, when the recipe calls for it. Butter - yes, spread on bread. Haven't bought margarine for I can't remember how many years.

Lard got such an awful reputation in the '60s-'80s that few Western supermarkets stock it to this day. Whereas butter is widely available and usually relatively cheap.

>>And guess what, I have only 3-4 kg more than when I was a student.

I'd heard that there's a correlation between energy input vs output that seems to affect weight. ;-) "Size of the in hole versus the out hole" is one of the charming descriptions I saw on Facebook recently. Apparently you can gobble lard by the spoonful and not gain weight if you're exercising or undergoing a teenage growth spurt or otherwise burning more calories than you're putting into the in hole. ;-)