Avoid Palm Oil

How to Avoid Palm Oil

 

avoid palm oil and save orang utansDo you know how much palm oil you buy?

Let me say, right up front, that it’s difficult to know.

Often, palm oil isn’t listed in Ingredients lists. If you see “vegetable oil” as an ingredient, it may or may not be palm oil. You don’t know. 

But because palm oil is so destructive to the environment, people’s health, animals and climate change (see why here), it’s really important to avoid palm oil. (And even “sustainable” palm oil isn’t great – see why here).

Here’s how.

1. Avoid palm oil in pre-packaged, snack foods

Corporate giants (such as Nestle and Unilever) buy vast quantities of palm oil to use in their products. It’s a cheap ingredient – but it’s not cheap for the planet, or for us! Avoid pre-packaged foods, and snack foods. Instead, buy local fresh food – it’s healthier for everyone! Examples of  food products that use palm oil are Oreos, Skittles and Nutella.

2. Avoid palm oil in personal products

Many soaps, cosmetics and shampoos use palm oil. Avoid palm oil in Neutrogena Naturals Soap and Dove Soap, Head & Shoulders and Herbal Essences Hair Care, Johnson & Johnson Baby Products, Colgate toothpaste and Maybelline Mascara. These are just a tiny fraction of the products that use palm oil.

3. Avoid palm oil in oil!

When you’re buying oil – e.g. for cooking – buy oil that is clearly labelled. Look for 100% sunflower or olive or coconut oil.

4. Avoid palm oil by checking ingredients

See the list of palm oil ingredients below – some names don’t look like palm oil at all!

5. Avoid palm oil in saturated fat

If a product’s saturated fat content makes up more than 40 percent of its total fat content, it almost always contains palm oil.

6. Avoid palm oil with social media

Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube all have timely information, news, petitions, alerts and items – read and share!

7. Avoid palm oil by asking

If you’re not sure whether a product contains palm oil, type the product name into your search engine along with ‘palm oil’ and scan the search results. Or contact the company and ask if they use palm oil.

8. Avoid palm oil by checking brands

Check this resource for a listing of the American big brands and how committed they are to sustainable palm oil (hint: the big-name fast food chains seem to be the least concerned).

9. Avoid palm oil problems by protecting orang-utans

The Orang-utan Project directly supports centres across Borneo & Sumatra that rescue and rehabilitate orang-utans and other wildlife affected by deforestation, as well as fund projects that employ local people to safeguard rainforest from illegal logging.

10. Avoid palm oil and vote with your money

If you have any doubt about a product or company, shop elsewhere.  There are always sustainable solutions. Purchase wisely. Vote with your money for the kind of world you want to live in.

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List of Ingredients that are / contain Palm Oil

Palm Kernel Oil (PKO), Palm Kernel Stearin (PKs); Palm Kernel Olein

(PKOo)Partially Hydrogenated Palm Oil (PHPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (PHPKO)

Fractionated Palm Oil (FPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (FPKO)

Organic Palm Oil (OPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (OPKO)

Palmitic Acid

Hydrated Palm Glycerides

Palm Oil Kernel

Vitamin A or Ascorbyl Palmitate

Hydrated palm glycerides

Palmate

Palmitate, and anything with Palmitate at the end

Sodium Laureth Sulphate and Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (these can also be derived from other vegetable oils)

Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)

Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye

Elaeis Guineensis

Glyceryl Stearate and Stearic Acid

Steareth -2 and Steareth -20

Cetyl Palmitate and Octyl Palmitate

Hexadecylic Acid

Read more:    The Problem with Palm Oil      Why Sustainable Palm Oil may not be sustainable after all

Please spread the word about how to avoid palm oil. Sharing buttons below this post – thank you!


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avoid palm oil, don't buy palm oil, ingredients, palm oil


  • You are mistaken in saying that the RSPO is organised by the producers itself. It is a multi-stakeholder platform with equal representation between the 7 stakeholder groups which includes environmental and social NGOs. Decisions are made via a model of consensus. To best ensure that palm oil is truly responsible,an we need to demand deforestation-free, peat-free and conflict-free Certified Sustainable Palm Oil. Please see the Palm Oil Innovation Group at http://www.poig.org. Its members include Orangutan Land Trust, Sumatran Orangutan Society, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and Forest Peoples Programme.
    You will find that the orangutan and rainforest organisations engaged in the issue of the impacts of unsustainable palm oil do not endorse a blanket boycott of palm oil, but encourage consumers to communicate their demand for more responsible (deforestation-free) supply chains. This article explains why: http://www.theswitchreport.com.au/top-stories/boycotting-palm-oil-not-way-save-orangutans/

    Thank you for caring about this issue.

    • Thank you for your comment. You highlight several valid issues – let’s look at them.

      RSPO

        In my article (link) you’ll see that I did not in fact say that RSPO is organized by the producers. I said “many of its members are directly involved in the industry so its standards are lax”. There are as you say, 7 stakeholder groups (oil palm producers, oil processors, oil traders, oil manufacturers, oil retailers, oil investors, nature conservation NGOs and social NGOs).

        Out of those 7 groups, 5 are concerned with producing or buying the optimum amount of oil at the least cost.

        I believe the NGOs do great work trying to offset this, but are heavily outweighed by both numbers and money. There may well be consensus achieved, which is always as a result of give-and-take. But 2 against 5 (+ money) places the odds against the NGOs.

        In addition, there is no regulatory body that controls palm oil, so whatever consensus may be agreed upon at RSPO level, it’s still voluntary, and not legally enforceable.

        Also, less than half of the palm oil produced, is supposedly “sustainable”.

        To make matters worse, purchasers can claim to buy certified palm oil if they buy via the Green Palm scheme which avoids the cost of separating certified palm oil from non-certified in the distribution chain – so what’s bought is very possibly unsustainable.

        I understand some of the difficulties, but I’m afraid it’s very difficult to have a great deal of faith in the true sustainability of palm oil with an RSPO or Green Palm label. I wish I could be more confident.

        I agree absolutely with you that palm oil should be deforestation-free, conflict free and peat-free. And the good thing is that there are already ways of achieving this, we don’t need to develop anything new.

        Boycotting Not the Answer?

      I read your article in The Switch Report with interest – and you are absolutely right that it is a complex issue, and not as simple as many environmentalists and consumers would like to believe.

      I disagree however with your blanket statement “I think everyone can agree that palm oil is here to stay, whether we like it or not”.

      Yes, palm oil is in demand, and it’s also true that palm oil as a crop has a high yield per hectare.

      But here’s why I have a problem with palm oil.

      What does it get used for? Fast foods, snack foods, instant noodles, margarine (to mention but a few). What they all have in common is food with a lack of nutritional value.

      Palm oil is also used in soaps, shampoos, detergents and more – which contain SLS and its varieties, which have health issues.

      Because palm oil is cheap to produce, manufacturers use it to create yet more demand for flashy personal care products, and “food” that doesn’t sustain us.

      And that’s one of the reasons why I believe consumers should stand up and say NO to palm oil – it’s destroying habitat in order to create low-quality products that are not good for us. It’s a good example of how we’re wrecking the planet we and our children live and depend on.

      In your article you say “Calling for a boycott of all palm oil in places like the EU or America would have negligible impact on the production of it, as the greatest take-up is from countries like India and China, who have less insistence for sustainability”.

      But the United States is the 7th largest purchaser of palm oil globally, so it’s still significant. You’re right about India (the #1 purchaser) and China (#3), but the EU is the 2nd-largest purchaser of palm oil in the world. So a boycott from Europe, if it were to happen, would have a significant impact.

      You suggest that instead of a boycott, consumers “communicate their demand for more responsible (deforestation-free) supply chains”. I’m not clear from your article what you’re suggesting we should do instead, but as the palm oil industry needs to make profits, purchasing – or not – seems to be one of the few effective consumer actions.

      Countries Need Development

      I agree with you that countries have the right to develop, and developed countries must not stop that. I live in Africa, and I see first-hand how important it is for people to rise from poverty. Something that makes a significant difference is the provision of electricity – light at night for example allows education and expanded working hours. Providing that energy through coal or other fossil fuels, however, uplifts in the short term but adds the burden of pollution and climate change to future generations. Providing that energy through renewable energy, not distributed but local to each community, gives independence and allows development while still being sustainable. (Of course the problem with that, is the lack of potential profit for large utility companies!). But I digress.

      In my opinion, using palm oil to “develop” a country is not ideal. Low skilled work with little opportunity for progression, mono-cropping and habitat destruction, and all for what – so the developed world can put some more harmful products on their skin, eat more low-nutrient food, and become obese yet under-nourished? That doesn’t look like “development” to me.

      Thank You!

      So again Michelle, thanks for your comment. I think you’re doing really good work and I love what you do for organgutans.
      I disagree with your premise, but I am delighted that we live in a free enough world that all different viewpoints are openly discussed, and we can all agree to differ.
      And that’s great – because ultimately, you and I both want the same thing – the best for everyone.

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