It’s not the lard. Fats in food do not cause obesity. Sugar causes obesity. Refried beans and rice contain lots of carbohydrates which are literally sugar. Lard just passes through the digestive tract. Enzymes are needed for the body to absorb fats and when there is plenty of sugar, the body doesn’t produce the enzymes. The sugar is easily absorbed and then if there is too much it gets stored in fat cells.
Complex carbohydrates are the killer and what makes people fat.
My wife taped a picture on the inside of one of the kitchen cabinets. It shows a progression of four men from cave man to modern humans. The last one is a fat guy holding an ice cream cone. Underneath the quote says something like
“its the sugar that makes you fat”