Palm Oil
Posted: 24th June 2016Having been in the food industry for a long time I have seen many changes in the way food is now produced.
Many people are unware of palm oil and where it is derived from.
It comes from the fruit of palm oil trees and is an edible vegetable oil which is not only used for the food industry but also in many toiletries and make up products.
When palm oil is produced large amonts of forests must be cleared for the development of the oil palm plantations.This is unfortunatley causing major issues such as deforestation and effecting climate change.
According to the World Wildlife Fund,an area the equivalent size of 300 football fields of rainforest is cleared each hour to make way for palm oil production. This large-scale deforestation is pushing many species of animals to extinction, and current findings show that if nothing changes species like the orangutan could become extinct in the wild within the next 5-10 years, and Sumatran tigers less than 3 years.
But what can we do? Boycotting every product that we know to contain palm oil is simply not realistic for most of us but we can do our very best to try and encourage the producers of our favourite brands to find alternatives to palm oil they put into these foods.
Unfortunatley under current European legislation, companies are under no obligation to state whether or not their products contain palm oil specifically as it currently permits palm oil to be stated in the ingredients as 'vegetable oi too.
One in ten products that you buy from the supermarket contains palm oil.Only a very small percentage of these products comes from a sustainable source.
This is just a few of your favourite brands that contain palm oil at present.
Aero chocolate bars
cadburys chocolate bars
Kit kat
Maltesers
Malt loaf
Ben and Jerrys icecream
Clover spread
Goodfellas pizza
If you want to buy food that has suistanable plam oil look for the RSPO certified label.
If you would like any more information on these issues follow the link below.
