It's a natural fat used around the world, nothing to be scared of. If you get "real" lard (not hydrogenated), it has no trans fats and can be quite useful in the kitchen. Hispanic grocery stores or butcher shops are a good spot to find it.
The word "natural" doesn't mean "part of nature" when speaking of nutrition, it means "part of our evolutionary history." We ate lard in the past(and survived because of it, and evolved toward making use of it.) We did not eat cyanide.
That's not the meaning of the word "natural" in the context of nutrition, from my understanding. Perhaps the word you're looking for is "traditional".
Semantics aside, I'll gladly grant you that lard is a food that has been eaten in the past. But, once again, that doesn't mean it's necessarily better than other foods that haven't been eaten in the past.
An good example is "golden" rice. An argument could be made (and has been made) that golden rice could save millions of people from devastating vitamin deficiency which they would continue suffer from were they to avoid golden rice for their "traditional" foods.
Plenty of traditional foods just aren't very nutritious or healthy.
I know that HNers will scoff at the citing of popular literature, but I find the arguments in "Diet for a Small Planet" and "In Defense of Food" quite compelling when it comes to "traditional" foods. Traditional diets are developed to make best use of the ingredients available in a region and are often the healthier than "scientific" diets. A good example is Mexican food. Corn and beans together make a complete protein.
I think that tradition, like cuisines, is an ever changing thing, however.
Also - do a quick google for B17 -- Since this whole chain of comments is a bunch of anecdotes - I've met two people who have been 'cured' of cancer taking that. After chemotherapy had failed / they had been written off.
(B17/Laertrile is banned in a lot of places US/Aus/etc - for links/containing/Cantbebotheredreadingthestudies Cyanide).
