Palm Oil

seachto7 · 28-06-2017 06:31PM #1

Over the last few months I've cut out eating food containing palm oil. It seems to be in everything.
Overhauled the diet in general so cut out the stuff with palm oil like biscuits, chocolate, crisps, sweets etc.
Lost 5kgs which is a good thing.
Apart from the ethical and environmental advantages around not supporting palm oil , is it a waste of time?

Atlantic Dawn · 28-06-2017 06:36PM

If you didn't bother cutting out the biscuits, chocolate, crisps, sweets etc would it have resulted in the same thing?

CeilingFly · 28-06-2017 06:39PM

If you replaced the stuff you took out of the diet with similar stuff without palm oil you'd have a point, but it seems that the other common item is sugar.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 28-06-2017 06:40PM

Could be the biscuits, crisps etc and not be the palm oil per se.

Doltanian · 28-06-2017 06:44PM

Palm Oil really should be banned, it is doing catastrophic damage to the rainforests of SE Asia in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Witchie · 28-06-2017 06:55PM

Doltanian wrote: »

Palm Oil really should be banned, it is doing catastrophic damage to the rainforests of SE Asia in Indonesia and Malaysia.

It is really hard though here (in Bali) to get food cooked in anything other than palm oil. If it is it is cooked in coconut oil....and then coz I am allergic to coconut, I can't eat it.

So without palm oil I would pretty much die of starvation at the moment.

It really upsets me though coz I want to do the right thing by the environment.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-06-2017 12:08AM

And what's the relationship between palm oil and elbow grease ?

jamesbere · 29-06-2017 12:20AM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

And what's the relationship between palm oil and elbow grease ?

First cousins

jimmycrackcorm · 29-06-2017 01:59PM

The important question is whether the OP lasts longer with an oiled palm.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-06-2017 09:24PM

Palm oil is the cheapest food grade oil you can get. It's like the corn syrup of fat.

And the EU already voted to reduce usage and impose strict conditions on sourcing it.

YFlyer · 29-06-2017 09:28PM

seachto7 wrote: »

Over the last few months I've cut out eating food containing palm oil. It seems to be in everything.
Overhauled the diet in general so cut out the stuff with palm oil like biscuits, chocolate, crisps, sweets etc.
Lost 5kgs which is a good thing.
Apart from the ethical and environmental advantages around not supporting palm oil , is it a waste of time?

Brian did you cut out the palm oil moisturising cream?

seachto7 · 13-04-2018 01:59PM

Still on a palm oil crusade. 90% of the time, the food I eat doesn't contain it. When I tell people I try to avoid it, they ask me "Why? Why is it bad for you?".
I don't know what to tell them!
Next up is reducing processed meat, and as I rarely drink alcohol, I might knock that on the head as well.

Donald Trump · 13-04-2018 02:15PM

"Palm oil" eh?

We all know you are really just referring to your search for some moisturizing ****-aiding lotion tips

seachto7 · 13-04-2018 03:25PM

Donald Trump wrote: »

"Palm oil" eh?

We all know you are really just referring to your search for some moisturizing ****-aiding lotion tips

I'd say I'd get my answer from some of the contributors on the "most beautiful women..." thread.

the purple tin · 13-04-2018 03:34PM

Palm oil has vitamin E, that's good. It's also quite high in saturated fat, that's bad.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-04-2018 09:36PM

Palm oil isn't ethical. Take some rainforest or tropical bog, turf out the locals and orangoutangs , drain and burn the land releasing more CO2 than you'll recover in a hundred years of "eco-friendly" "renewable" palm oil. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

tara73 · 15-04-2018 01:28PM

OP, Kudos for doing it and opening up a thread on it. I think, unfortunately, most people are still not aware what the excessive use of palm oil in the food industry is doing to the environment i.e. destroying rainforest with all the consequences it has for everybody in the longrun.

I don't buy any stuff containing palm oil anymore.

Subcomandante Marcos · 15-04-2018 01:34PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Palm oil isn't ethical. Take some rainforest or tropical bog, turf out the locals and orangoutangs , drain and burn the land releasing more CO2 than you'll recover in a hundred years of "eco-friendly" "renewable" palm oil. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

+ all the extra wild fires (methane, Co2, air pollution from peat and wood smoke) because the peat is bare and dry and the excess moisture from all the treecover has been removed from the local ecosystem.
+ all of the extra methane released by the drying of the peat.
+the bio-diversity loss

It's a terrible, utterly unneeded product.

th283 · 15-04-2018 02:35PM

I think Palm oil as a whole should not be disregarded as a food ingredient, if it is handled properly and sourced responsibly. There is a lot of movement towards responsibly sourced rspo palm oil (https://rspo.org) at the moment, with some of the larger supermarkets in Ireland and the uk insisting that all new products launched are certified as using sustainable palm oil

tara73 · 15-04-2018 02:46PM

th283 wrote: »

I think Palm oil as a whole should not be disregarded as a food ingredient, if it is handled properly and sourced responsibly. There is a lot of movement towards responsibly sourced rspo palm oil (https://rspo.org) at the moment, with some of the larger supermarkets in Ireland and the uk insisting that all new products launched are certified as using sustainable palm oil

links not working for me.

also, things like certificates are often just on paper and are mainly for soothing the customers.

Podge_irl · 15-04-2018 03:37PM

Unless we are willing to pay Indonesia and Malaysia not to cut down their rainforests to plant trees that produce food and oil quicker than any other variety of plant and provide incomes to a huge part of the population we should shut up about the unethical nature of it. It is not inherently worse than soybean oil or the ridiculous incentives put in for corn production for ethanol in the US. But they comes from places with richer people and better lobbying.

The certificates are also not just paper. They are backed up by a fairly reasonable amount of auditing.

Witchie · 15-04-2018 04:56PM

th283 wrote: »

I think Palm oil as a whole should not be disregarded as a food ingredient, if it is handled properly and sourced responsibly. There is a lot of movement towards responsibly sourced rspo palm oil (https://rspo.org) at the moment, with some of the larger supermarkets in Ireland and the uk insisting that all new products launched are certified as using sustainable palm oil

Agree. The actual growing is not the problem and provides a much needed source of income. It is the production methods that need to change.

Capt'n Midnight · 15-04-2018 05:06PM

Podge_irl wrote: »

Unless we are willing to pay Indonesia and Malaysia not to cut down their rainforests to plant trees that produce food and oil quicker than any other variety of plant and provide incomes to a huge part of the population we should shut up about the unethical nature of it.

Where's the evidence that lots of people benefit ?

It's just an asset grab by rich and powerful people.

Indonesia has a large population of 260m because it has a warm climate and most people can't Stuff and Cars they have spare carbon credits so the elite are quite happy to burn through them.

Podge_irl · 15-04-2018 08:41PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Where's the evidence that lots of people benefit ?

It's just an asset grab by rich and powerful people.

Indonesia has a large population of 260m because it has a warm climate and most people can't Stuff and Cars they have spare carbon credits so the elite are quite happy to burn through them.

The workers have jobs. It is not unusual for schools to be built on the plantations for the worker's children either.

Palm trees have a greater production of food per square km and mature quicker than most alternatives. If you don't want palm to be a staple of their economy than offer them an alternative. It is not fundamentally different to the soybean production in Argentina as one example.

th283 · 15-04-2018 09:10PM

tara73 wrote: »

links not working for me.

also, things like certificates are often just on paper and are mainly for soothing the customers.

This link may work https://rspo.org

The certificates aren’t just on paper, there’s a lot involved and individual batches of foods must be fully traceable back to sustainable sources

Palm Oil

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