Have you ever heard of palm oil?
If not, you’re guaranteed to have tried it – because it’s used in almost everything you eat, drink and use.
For example, you will find it in baked foods, chocolates and sweets, cosmetics, shampoo, cleaning products, washing detergents and toothpaste.
In fact, it is used in around 40% to 50% of foods and other household products sold in the western world, and is now the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet. To satisfy this huge demand, tens of millions of tonnes of palm oil is produced every year.
However, this ubiquitous oil is contributing in major ways to deforestation, climate change, and the deaths of tens of thousands of animals.
So what is it, and how is it so destructive?
The oil palm tree, originally from Western Africa, flourishes wherever there is heat and lots of rainfall – meaning that rainforests in Africa, Asia, North America and South America are all prime locations for palm oil production.
Around 85% of all palm oil in the world is exported from Indonesia and Malaysia, most of the time not using sustainable methods.
According to the WWF, every hour an area of rainforest the size of 300 football fields is cleared to make way for palm oil to be grown – which is devastating for the animals that live there, as well as having a catastrophic effect on the environment.
Greeks launch massive protest in dispute over Macedonia's name
In order to destroy such vast areas of native forest, huge quantities of timber and forest undergrowth are burned, which releases toxic smoke into the atmosphere contributing significantly to climate change. This is why Indonesia is now the world’s third-highest greenhouse gas emitter.
Animals are suffering too. It’s believed that a third of all species of mammal in Indonesia are now critically endangered as a result of this horrific practice, which sees animals killed, injured, or left homeless by deforestation.
These palm oil developments also leave animals more vulnerable to being captured by poachers and killed for their body parts, or sold to tourism parks to be enslaved and used as entertainment in countries such as Thailand and Bali.
The Sumatran rhino, the sun bear, the pygmy elephant, the proboscis monkey and the clouded leopard are all at risk. Things look grim for Sumatran tigers, with experts warning that the big cats could be extinct within just three years.
But the situation is particularly bad for the orangutan. Studies show that, if we carry on as we are, the orangutan will be extinct in the wild in just five to 10 years. Orangutans are found buried alive, or brutally killed by machete, guns and other weapons on a regular basis. According to official records, around 1,000 orangutans die every year as a result of palm oil production in the last 20 years – either because of deforestation, or at the hands of poachers.
Now, there are only around 104,700 Bornean orangutans, and just 7,500 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild.
And while the palm oil industry has provided jobs for local people, it has also been linked to major human rights violations – including child labour in some remote parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. Governments have also been known to allow big companies to seize land owned by indigenous people, because of the huge financial benefit the palm oil industry brings them.
So what can you do about it?
Palm oil is incredibly difficult to avoid outright, considering it’s used in so much stuff. There are also so many different euphemisms for palm oil, that you may not even notice it in a product’s ingredients list.
However, it’s not totally hopeless – there are things you can do.
Look for sustainable palm oil
Sustainable palm oil – or ‘no deforestation palm oil’ – is produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way. Keep an eye out for the RSPO label on a product, which certifies that something contains sustainable palm oil.
Another label to look out for is the Green Palm logo, which shows the product supports the transition to sustainable palm oil. Proceeds from Green Palm apparently help growers pay for the transition to sustainable oil.
If something contains palm oil but doesn’t have these labels, don’t buy it.
Get to know the euphemisms
Does your product contain…
Vegetable Oil, Vegetable Fat, Palm Kernel, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Fruit Oil, Palmate, Palmitate, Palmolein, Glyceryl, Stearate, Stearic Acid, Elaeis Guineensis, Palmitic Acid, Palm Stearine, Palmitoyl Oxostearamide, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-3, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Kernelate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Lauryl Lactylate/Sulphate, Hyrated Palm Glycerides, Etyl Palmitate, Octyl Palmitate, or Palmityl Alcohol?
If so, then it contains palm oil.
Check the company in the WWF’s database of palm oil buyers
The WWF has a handy interactive tool that lets you do a quick search of any company in the world to see if its palm oil is sustainable or unsustainable. For example, looking up Unilever reveals that it has a very good WWF score of 9/9, and that it’s an RSPO member. Ginsters, which makes pasties, has a respectable score of 6/9 – which apparently means it’s ‘well on the path’ to sustainability. On the other hand Tayto, the UK’s third-largest snack manufacturer, has a score of just 1/9.
Eat more fresh food and cook more
Avoiding processed food, which necessarily contain a number of preservatives, will help you cut down your palm oil consumption. Try as far as is possible to eat fresh, home-cooked food with organic ingredients, rather than ready-made stuff.
[contf] [contfnew] 
METRO
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
