In January, the European Parliament (EP) voted to ban the use of palm oil for the production of biofuels in the European Union (EU) by 2020, with the proclaimed aim to stop the deforestation of rainforests in mainly Indonesia and Malaysia. First of all, the exports of palm oil will go down somewhat and so will prices.
Palm oil is obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Palm oil is used for preventing vitamin A deficiency, cancer, brain disease, aging; and treating malaria, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cyanide poisoning. Palm oil is used for weight loss and increasing the body's metabolism.
Since oil palm is the most efficient oil crop available, it is a crucial commodity when it comes to feeding the growing number of people on our planet. The importance of palm oil becomes clear when we consider that many people in the developing world rely on it as a cheap and available cooking medium.
Reports of the health impacts of palm oil consumption in foods are mixed. Some studies link consumption of palm oil to increased ischaemic heart disease mortality, raised low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, increased risk of cardiovascular disease and other adverse effects.
Palm oil in many countries is used as a simple frying oil, but many other markets make use of both palm and palm kernel oil:
- Consumer retail food and snack manufacturers.
- Personal care and cosmetics (mainly palm kernel oil)
- Biofuel and energy.
- Animal feed (palm kernel expeller)
- Pharmaceutical.
- Industrial.
Conclusions: Palm oil consumption results in higher LDL cholesterol than do vegetable oils low in saturated fat and higher HDL cholesterol than do trans fat–containing oils in humans.
While palm oil does not contain trans fats, palm kernel oil is 80% saturated fat and palm oil is 50% saturated fat. In either case, only a very small amount of added fat is used in peanut butter – adding only about one additional gram of saturated fat to each serving.
The $40 billion palm oil industry is notorious for wiping out rainforests, displacing indigenous peoples, spewing carbon into the atmosphere and driving the orangutan and other animals toward extinction.
Palm oil is used because it's economical to grow. Palm oil is also used because it is semi solid at room temperature. Other vegetable oils have to be partially hydrogenated to make them more solid but in food process creates trans fats or trans fatty acids, which raise cholesterol.
Palm oil, the oil obtained from the oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis) is one of the most widely used cooking oils in West African countries. Coconut oil obtained from the coconut tree (Cocos nucifera), also finds extensive use in tropical and subtropicals regions of the world for food and industrial purposes.
The largest users of palm oil are India (9.4 million tonnes) and Indonesia (6 million tonnes) – countries in which palm oil is traditionally used for cooking. The EU is the third-largest consumer of palm oil.
Although we predominantly use ingredients that are derivatives of palm oil and are a relatively small user of palm oil or palm kernel oil (PKO) as a whole, we're committed to ensuring that we source these sustainably.
It's an edible vegetable oil that comes from the fruit of oil palm trees, the scientific name is Elaeis guineensis. Two types of oil can be produced; crude palm oil comes from squeezing the fleshy fruit, and palm kernel oil which comes from crushing the kernel, or the stone in the middle of the fruit.
A recent report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, concluded that boycotting palm oil would merely shift – rather than counter – losses to rainforests and wildlife caused by agriculture. In fact, palm oil makes up 35% of all vegetable oils, grown on just 10% of the land allocated to oil crops.
Palm oil is so efficient that using an alternative oil would require up to 10 times the land to grow. This efficiency the main reason the oil is so cheap. Oil palm trees are evergreen and perennial, they produce oil all year around, and can happily grow in soils that many other plants can't.
To avoid palm oil, choose products that contain clearly labeled oils, such as 100 percent sunflower oil, corn oil, olive oil, coconut oil, or canola oil.
