Lard, technically, is made from rendered beef fat.  In the good old days,
McDonald's fast food restaurants fried their french fried potatoes in beef
lard.  Yum yum.  Dr. Jack, are you listening?

Crisco is a form of highly saturated vegetable oil.  The more highly
saturated the fat is (1) the worse it is for your health and (2) the firmer
it is at high temperatures.  Crisco is solid at room temperature, and is
white in color.  Highly UNsaturated vegetable oils are liquid at room
temperature, like canola (rapeseed) oil, peanut (arachide) oil, safflower
oil, etc.  Karite/shea butter -- used in Mali, rendered from the nuts of
karite trees -- is also highly saturated, and is also solid and white at
very high temperatures, like Crisco.  In fact, both Crisco and karite butter
must be heated pretty hot before they melt.

The idea of putting Crisco on a sore nipple makes about as much sense to me
as the local day care practice of putting Vaseline (a petroleum product,
also solid at room temperature) on children's scraped knees or burns.

Kathy D.