You weren't misremembering your childhood
(media.scored.co)
Not sure what that guy said but we keep what is useful for ground beef and we use some fat for suet and to sell to deer hunters but the rest we just don't have a way to market so it has to be tossed. If they let us process our own tallow and sell it we would but red tape prevents that. A lot of our waste is due to red tape that doesn't actually improve food safety.