Four categories, weighted. Seed oils count three times as much as plastics or ultra-processing, so a poor seed-oil score pulls the overall number down hardest.
Plastics has no ratings yet and count as 0 toward the overall score — an unproven category isn’t a free pass.
Full methodology: how we score restaurants.
No seed oils · Some artificial additives
It said that steak ‘n Shake is has 100% grass fed beef. They don’t have a ton of shit in their fryer oil and they removing seated oils from their buns so they’re pretty much have no cereal rolls.
Steak 'n Shake fries and tots in 100% beef tallow and publishes it - that component is attached to all 26 fry, crinkle-cut and tot items - and the burger is a grass fed grass finished steakburger on a short build. The seed oil that is left shows up in the onion rings and the chicken fingers, and most components publish no ingredient statement at all, so additives could not be scored.
Rated from Steak 'n Shake's own nutrition platform - the EveryBite/Smartmenu widget their menu page links to as "NUTRITION & ALLERGENS" - read via its public API on 2026-08-25. 131 dishes, 122 with a component list, 104 unique components. The headline is good and it is published: the fries and tots are cooked in "100% Beef Tallow" (South Chicago Packing), a component attached to 26 dishes - every fry, crinkle-cut and tot size on the menu. The Beef Tallow Fries statement reads POTATOES, BEEF TALLOW, FOOD STARCH-MODIFIED. The burger is a grass fed grass finished steakburger and The Original Double 'N Cheese is cheese, beef, bun, ketchup, pickles, raw onion and seasoning. Only 3 of 122 dishes contain a component with a published seed oil: Regular Onion Rings and the two chicken finger items, both vegetable oil. The catch: only 5 of 104 components carry a real ingredient statement, so the buns, cheese sauce and shake syrups are unverified and additives could not be scored.
Tallow reviewers check Steak 'n Shake on four things: whether it cooks in seed oils, whether the menu carries artificial additives, whether food touches plastic on the way out, and how much of it arrives premade rather than made in the kitchen. The answers to each are scored below.
Mostly no. Steak 'n Shake scores 75/100 here — reviewers report mostly avoiding seed oils.
Sometimes. Steak 'n Shake scores 50/100 here, so reports are mixed.
Partly — Steak 'n Shake scores 58/100, which is middling. Tallow rates what a kitchen cooks with, not how many calories are on the plate.
Sometimes. Steak 'n Shake scores 50/100 here, so reports are mixed.
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Rating and reporting happen in the app so submissions can be verified and moderated. Browse more on the restaurant map, or check packaged groceries with the product finder.
