The Problem With Palm Oil
Do you like Snickers, Twix, M&M’s or any type of chocolate that you consume daily? Chances are that by consuming them you are destroying rainforests & also increasing the risk of being pre-diabetic.
You’ll be asking how it is possible then let me tell you all of these products have one thing in common PALM OIL. But how is the consumption of an oil is destroying our planet?
A few months back I watched Leonardo Dicaprio’s starred documentary ‘Before The Flood’ and in the documentary I found out that in the last 20 years, over 3.5 million hectares of Indonesian and Malaysian forest have been destroyed to make way for palm oil. Which is mind-boggling. Do you know how much is 3.5 million hectares? After doing the math I found out it is roughly equal to 5,645,162 football fields. (WTF!!!)
When I did a little more research on this topic, I found out that while harvesting palm oil, it nearly kills 6,000 Orangutans every year, leaving them in a critically endangered position.
Is Palm Oil used everywhere?
Palm oil comes from the oil of the palm tree. There are two main species of oil palm trees. It is mostly grown near the equators. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 86% of the global production the palm fruit that comes from the tree contains palm oil and palm kernel oil inside it. Companies take the fruit and extract the palm oil from the pulp of the fruit to use in a ton of different products, it’s the second-most widely produced edible oil.
Palm oil is used in tons of products from biodiesel to pizza dough to lipsticks thanks to its natural preservative effect, heat stability, and smoothness. According to WWF, almost 50% of the packaged products in supermarkets contain palm oil.
Here are some of the products that use Palm oil — Biodiesel, Biscuits, Chocolate, Cookies, Detergent, Face wash, Ice cream, Instant Noodles, Lipstick, Margarine, Packaged Bread, Packaged Pastries, Pizza Dough, Shampoo, Soap. Most of these products contain palm oil that is produced using unsustainable practices.
When you’re at the grocery store, be really careful to look through the ingredients. Although a lot of the time companies like to hide the fact they use unsustainable palm oil by using a different name. Palm oil goes by many different names, here’s what you need to keep an eye out for when looking at a product’s ingredient list: 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, Palmityl Alcohol.
Indonesian tropical forests are treasure troves of biodiversity, holding 10% of the world’s species of reptiles, birds, mammals, and fish. Much like the Amazon rainforest, they also store vast amounts of carbon in their soils and trees. According to the Indonesian government, 80% of the fire in the Indonesian rainforests is caused by companies trying to clear out the land to grow Palm trees. The deforestation that comes with palm oil is devastating to the environment. On average, A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. About 1000 to 2500 trees can be planted within a hectare of forest. After doing the math again I found out that over the last 20 years palm oil has stopped trees from potentially absorbing roughly 76 million to 190 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s a horrific number.
Can we stop this?
If I was in a media outlet I would have said some cliche lines like “Only buy certified oil that is produced sustainably.” But the reality is that up to 99% of the oil that is “certified” comes from recently deforested land. So what to do? Simple, STOP USING THESE PRODUCTS. High consumer demand creates these unethical practices and which grows these issues on a very large scale. Try to limit these products, eat these products maybe once in a month or two. Don’t apply lipstick, don’t wash your hair with shampoo on a daily basis. Practising these can make a drastic change in supply chains and reduce unsustainable practices. We can also use different oils such as rapeseed or sunflower oil but these are not the most efficient crops and this will further increase the production price and companies do not want that.
However, Since 2020, there has been a decline in deforestation of Indonesian rainforests from 180,000 hectares in 2018 to 19,000 hectares in 2021. But this has happened mostly due to Covid-19 which increased the travel and export restrictions. But, as more and more companies are adjusting to NDPE policies (No Deforestation, Peat and Exploitation) we might see some changes in the future.
We have put ourselves in this situation. It does not seem to be a unified answer to what option is regarded as the most sustainable alternative. However, one thing is clear, if we want to go towards a sustainable future, something must change or the impact of palm oil on the environment will continue having negative effects. Indonesian and the Amazon rainforests are the only large rainforests remaining that store a large amount of carbon and destroying them is nothing but destroying our ozone layer and our planet.
Thanks for reading. Peace.
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