However, it is a highly controversial food. On the other, it may pose risks to heart health. There are also environmental concerns related to the steady increase in its production. This article takes a detailed look at palm oil and its effects on health, the environment and sustainability.
Palm oil comes from the fleshy fruit of oil palms. Unrefined palm oil is sometimes referred to as red palm oil because of its reddish-orange color. The main source of palm oil is the Elaeis guineensis tree, which is native to West and Southwest Africa.
Its use in this region dates back more than 5, years. However, a hybrid of the two plants is sometimes used in palm oil production. In recent years, oil palm growth has expanded to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Indonesia. Like coconut oil , palm oil is semi-solid at room temperature.
This is due to the different fatty acid compositions of the two oils. Palm oil is one of the least expensive and most popular oils worldwide, accounting for one-third of global plant oil production 1. While both originate from the same plant, palm kernel oil is extracted from the seed of the fruit. It provides different health benefits. Palm oil comes from palm trees native to Africa, where it has been consumed for thousands of years.
It is semi-solid at room temperature and differs from palm kernel oil in nutritional composition. Palm oil is used for cooking and is also added to many ready-to-eat foods in your grocery store. Palm oil is sometimes added to peanut butter and other nut butters as a stabilizer to prevent the oil from separating and settling at the top of the jar.
In the s, palm oil was replaced with trans fats in many products due to concerns that consuming tropical oils might jeopardize heart health. However, after studies revealed the health risks of trans fats , food manufacturers resumed using palm oil. In addition, it can be used to produce biodiesel fuel, which serves as an alternative energy source 3. Palm oil is used in cooking, especially in West African cuisines and curries.
It is also found in certain foods, products and fuels. Here is the nutritional content of one tablespoon 14 grams of palm oil 4 :. It also contains high amounts of oleic acid and smaller amounts of linoleic acid and stearic acid. In fractionated palm oil, the liquid portion is removed by a crystallizing and filtering process. The remaining solid portion is higher in saturated fat and has a higher melting temperature 5.
It also contains vitamin E and red palm oil contains antioxidants called carotenoids, which your body can convert into vitamin A. Palm Oil Scorecard. What is palm oil? What products is it in? Why is palm oil everywhere? What is the problem with palm oil?
What solutions are there? What is being done in the UK? What can I do? Palm oil scorecard. What else can I do? Tell our leaders we won't foget. Except that it is not magic. It can handle frying without spoiling, and blends well with other oils. Its combination of different types of fats and its consistency after refining make it a popular ingredient in packaged baked goods.
Its low production costs make it cheaper than frying oils such as cottonseed or sunflower. It provides the foaming agent in virtually every shampoo, liquid soap or detergent. Cosmetics manufacturers prefer it to animal tallow for its ease of application and low price. It is increasingly used as a cheap raw material for biofuels, especially in the European Union. It functions as a natural preservative in processed foods, and actually does raise the melting point of ice-cream.
Palm oil can be used as an adhesive that binds together the particles in fibreboard. Worldwide production of palm oil has been climbing steadily for five decades. Between and , annual production quadrupled, from By , it is expected to quadruple again, reaching m tonnes. Today, 3 billion people in countries use products containing palm oil. Globally, we each consume an average of 8kg of palm oil a year. Fires set to clear forests and create land for more palm plantations are the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia, a country of million people.
The financial incentive to produce more palm oil is helping to warm the planet, while destroying the only habitat of Sumatran tigers, Sumatran rhinos and orangutans — driving them towards extinction. Yet consumers are often unaware they are even using the stuff. How did palm oil insinuate itself into every corner of our lives? No single innovation caused palm oil consumption to soar.
Instead, it was the perfect commodity at the right moment for industry after industry, each of which adopted it to replace ingredients and never turned back.
At the same time, producing nations view palm oil as a poverty-reduction scheme, while international finance organisations view it as a growth engine for developing economies. As the palm industry expanded, conservationists and environmental organisations such as Greenpeace started to raise the alarm about its devastating effects on carbon emissions and wildlife habitat. However, it is not impossible to produce palm oil sustainably, and several organisations certify sustainable producers.
In response, a backlash against palm oil has developed: last April, the supermarket Iceland pledged that it would cut palm oil from all its own-brand foods by the end of In December, Norway banned imports for biofuel production. Tellingly, Iceland found it impossible to fulfill its pledge. Instead, the company ended up removing its branding from foods containing palm oil rather than removing palm oil from all of its branded foods.
Determining which products contain palm oil, let alone how sustainably it has been sourced, requires an almost supernatural level of consumer consciousness. More than half of global demand comes from Asia. It was a good 20 years after the first alarms about deforestation in Brazil that consumer action slowed — not stopped — the destruction. Second, producers have pushed to keep its price low. Third, it has replaced more expensive oils in home and personal care products. Fourth, again because it is cheap, it has been widely adopted as cooking oil in Asian countries.
Finally, as those Asian countries have grown richer, they have begun to consume more fat, much of it in the form of palm oil. The growing palm oil industry and unsustainable production of palm oil is one of the biggest threats facing the forests and wildlife of places like Borneo and Sumatra — and demand is continuing to increase.
We can make a big difference in protecting wildlife by tackling the issue of unsustainable palm oil production. Forest habitats are being lost, animals are losing their homes and carbon is being released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Below are some Frequently Asked Questions about palm oil…. One of these animals is the orangutan, of which all three species are listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Find out more on the IUCN website. The ideal is that we move towards a market where all sustainable palm oil is from a physical source, either identity preserved or segregated. However mass balance and indeed RSPO credits have a place in the market. Meijaard, E. Oil palm and biodiversity.
It is a very versatile oil and has different properties and functions for use in a variety of products from soaps to chocolate. It can be a liquid or a solid which gives it an advantage over other oils. Its smooth and creamy texture and absence of smell make it a desirable ingredient in many recipes, including baked goods such as biscuits , and it can be semi-solid at room temperature which is a property needed to keep butter and margarine spreadable.
It has a natural preservative effect which extends the shelf life of food products.
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