PALM OIL FREE

(ADVICE AREA)

This advice area informs you on how to live a palm oil free lifestyle which is a goal that everyone should strive to reach in as little time as possible as the longer we continue to use palm oil, the more rainforest will continue to be cut down in countries such as Borneo and Malaysia to grow more palm oil, where already an area of rainforest the size of New Zealand is dedicated to growing a monoculture of oil palm, and rainforest is continuing to be logged for palm oil at a rate of 300 football fields every hour or 7,200 football fields each day!

Palm oil is a cheap, easy-to-produce oil that is found in over 50% of products in your local supermarket so it is likely that many of the products you buy will contain palm oil. Palm oil is the go-to oil of most companies instead of other similar vegetable oils like olive, soybean or coconut oil because palm oil is much more productive per acre than any other oil. This high yield makes it very popular with companies who are driven by profit and couldn't care less about the environment. Palm oil is found in everything from sweets, cosmetics and makeup, 'pre-prepared' and instant foods to soaps and shampoos, biofuels and even detergents.

The less demand there is for palm oil, the less rainforest will consequently be destroyed. Please take the time to read the advice area below and learn how to be palm oil free if you aren't already as this really can have a massive impact. When we stop buying products that contain palm oil and boycott it on a huge scale the companies that sell these products will respond and swap out their palm oil as well to alternatives.

Palm oil is disguised under lots of different names and before 2014 it wasn't necessary in the EU to label palm oil, but a law created in December 2014 made labelling of palm oil in the ingredients a legal requirement instead of masking it as a 'vegetable oil.' Below are some of the most common names palm oil is hidden under in the ingredients list of your foodstuff or cosmetics:

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.

• Check the ingredients - if the product you were going to buy contains any of these above forms of palm oil simply don't buy it and find a palm oil free alternative instead (an easy way to check if the product has palm oil without memorising all of the complicated names above is if the ingredients list has anything with 'palm' in it, it is almost certainly palm oil). Palm oil is now found in over 50% of products in your supermarket so it is essential that you check what you are buying as it is easy to slip and unconsciously buy something that has palm oil in it. Palm oil is common in pre-prepared food and baked goods, as well as most cosmetics so these are the areas of the supermarket that you should be most wary of. Quite often if you buy higher-quality or organic produce it will be palm oil free as it tends to be the cheaper or 'popular' products aimed at the mass market that use it.
• Cosmetics - the other main supermarket section that palm oil is found in is in cosmetics and healthcare. Palm oil is used in everything from detergents; makeup; facial and body creams; shower gels; shampoos and more. There are many alternatives available from 'natural' companies and even many other companies that don't really promote themselves as being eco-friendly but don't use palm oil all the same. Carex, a massive company that makes products like handwash was recently exposed for using conflict palm oil in their products and has not changed their supply chain yet despite lots of public pressure. The 'popular' brands of cosmetics are probably more likely to contain palm oil, as well as the cheaper cosmetics ranges as palm oil is the cheapest oil to produce (this is why it is so popular). Eco-friendly brands such as Ecover and Seventh Generation make products like washing-up liquids and all of these are palm-oil free, and eco-friendly companies like these often have other environmental commitments such as using recycled plastic for their bottles. For washing up powder you can switch to soap nuts (this is what my family uses) which are quite literally nuts that you put in the washing machine (in a small cloth bag, not loose or they will be destroyed by the spin cycle) and they serve the same purpose as regular washing up powder or detergent but are completely natural, eco-friendly, lather well and leave none of the chemical smells and traces on your clothing like detergents. Soap nuts can also be reused around 4-5 times before you need to refill the bag with nuts (you only need around 6 in the bag) and they can also be quite cheap if you bulk-buy them online. Faith In Nature makes products like shampoos which are eco-friendly and work just as good as brands like Head and Shoulders, but don't use palm oil.
• Cook more - As I have already said, palm oil found in most ready cooked meals along with a whole host of other unhealthy and environmentally-impacting ingredients. Trying to cook more and buying less pre-prepared meals or 'oven' and 'microwave' meals can hugely reduce the amount of palm oil you use. You should try to cook with fresh organic ingredients as this is healthier, tastes better and is better for the environment as the food will have been grown without pesticides. You should also try to buy locally where possible as this will have only been transported relatively short distances whereas the food you buy in supermarkets will likely have been grown in an intensive farm on the other side of the world then transported vast distances in modes of transport that pump out vast amounts of carbon dioxide. To give you an idea of how far your food can be transported, when the distances of all the ingredients your Christmas dinner travelled are added it usually comes to around 49,000 miles!!!
• The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - The RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) was established in 2004 as a way of authenticating palm oil and whether it was produced to the new sustainable standards, and to be a reliable body to certify products that contain sustainable palm oil. RSPO standards allow growers to grow on peat land, that stores up to 10x more CO2 than 'normal' soil. This means that planting on peat land is 10x worse for the environment, yet the RSPO allows this. Even supposedly 'sustainable' and 'organic' palm oil is bad for the environment as a sustainable palm oil plantation is (according to RSPO standards) produced without deforestation but this has been accused as being a green-washing scheme. The plantation is a monoculture with no biodiversity and cannot be compared to the incredibly biodiverse ecosystems of the rainforest.
• Nutella - Certain companies use huge amounts of palm oil in their products, and if you aren't going to take up a palm oil free lifestyle you should at least consider avoiding products like this. The most famous of these products is Nutella. Nutella is over 25% palm oil (and over 50% sugar!) and so obviously if you avoid products like this with a really high palm oil percentage you will be having an especially large impact.
• Palm Oil Investigations - there are numerous websites and social media accounts on platforms like instagram, for example @palmoilinvestigations who as their name suggests they investigate companies and where they get their palm oil from and if the palm oil the company uses is conflict palm oil, Palm Oil Investigations share their findings. There are many more available and if you follow these on your social media you can keep up to date with the latest findings from groups such as Palm Oil Investigations and the latest companies to go palm oil free. Palm oil investigations also has an app which you can download HERE  and it tells you if a product contains palm oil when you scan the barcode and also what type of palm oil (e.g. certified sustainable palm oil, no deforestation policy, palm oil free etc.), which you may prefer as it is quicker than manually looking at the ingredients list and it goes into more detail.
• Say No To Palm Oil - If you wish to have a go at a palm oil free lifestyle head over to saynotopalmoil.com (which is also a great source to learn more about palm oil) and you can on sign up for their 28 day Palm Oil Challenge in the 'what I can do' section. It encompasses 4 main areas of your home - Fridge, Pantry, Bathroom and Laundry and teaches you how to live a more natural, ethical and most importantly palm oil free life with recommended deforestation and palm oil free brands; food recipes and additional resources to help you learn about palm oil-free alternatives in every section of your home. Click HERE to check it out.
• Petitions - there are also lots of online petitions that you can find to do with palm oil, especially on the website www.rainforest-rescue.org (or search up rainforest rescue on your web browser). Petitions like these can be successful and cause real change and they are quick and easy to sign. If you search up 'palm oil petitions' you will find some more to sign on various other websites, and every signature helps so get your family and friends to sign it as well for more impact. You can also donate to various groups and organisations that are helping preserve rainforest and the animals that live in them and stop encroaching palm oil plantations, even a small monthly donation of 5 pounds, the price of two coffees, will help.
• Educate others -most consumers are unaware of the effects that palm oil has and even what it is and why it is so bad. That is why it is your responsibility to educate others such as your friends and family about the dangers of palm oil in the hope that you will inspire others around you to also go palm oil free and so reduce the demand for palm oil even more. Even just recommending or sharing a blog, website or social media account that talks about palm oil with them helps and could make them reconsider their buying habits.

The advice area above has taught you how to go palm oil free, but I haven't really told you why it is so important in that much detail. Below is a section from my palm oil blog that goes through why palm oil is so bad for the environment; for people near the plantations and for your health. I hope that you will read this part of the advice area as well because if you haven't really felt that inspired and determined to go palm oil free by reading above I hope below will change your mind.

Palm Oil and the Environment:

The huge demand for palm oil needs a huge area for plantations to produce the crop. Oil palm plantations grow best in the tropics along the equator, unfortunately favouring areas in which rainforests are found. This has led to unimaginably vast areas of pristine rainforest in places like Borneo, Sumatra and Indonesia being cleared for a monoculture of oil palm that spreads for hundreds of miles in every direction. This is despite the fact that 20 million hectares of abandoned agricultural land is appropriate for the establishment of oil palm plantations in Indonesia alone. Planters feel that it is more expensive to plant in grasslands or in degraded areas because they will have to add so much more chemical fertilizer. The cost of clearing forests is subsidised from the sale of timber from concession areas so it is usually cheaper to grow where there was previously rainforest and sell the timber to offset the costs. The majority of palm oil is grown in countries such as Borneo, Sumatra, Indonesia and Malaysia but the nearby island of New Guinea / Papua New Guinea has currently escaped reasonably unscathed from the advance of palm oil who have concentrated their attention as previously mentioned on the countries such as Indonesia and Borneo. However, this could soon change - massive palm oil companies that have already devastated other places are beginning to eye up vast areas of rainforest in areas in the Congo, Amazon and Papua New Guinea where they have so far not expanded. The less demand there is for palm oil, the less area is needed to grow the crop, and so more rainforest is saved - the amount of palm oil you consume directly impacts on the futures of these rainforests.

The amount that palm oil plantations now cover is impossible to comprehend - an area the size of New Zealand (or 66 million acres). Rainforests and human settlements have been cleared and replaced by 'green deserts' of oil palm that have practically no biodiversity. Over 300 football fields of rainforest are being cut down every hour for oil palm plantations, or 7,200 football fields per day. This loss of rainforest is important in many ways. Rainforests are by far the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world with an estimated 50% of the world's species. Many treatments for diseases are taken from plants only found in rainforests, and the complete cure for cancer is thought to be almost certainly somewhere in the rainforest (currently 25% of the ingredients in cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms that only grow in rainforests) I have done a whole blog specifically about rainforests that you can view HERE if you want to learn more about why they are so important for a stable future and environment.

The damage caused to the environment by clearing rainforest for palm oil development is shocking - clearing one hectare (about two square acres) of peat forest can release 6,000 tons of carbon dioxide. Over 10 million hectares of Indonesia's 22.5 million hectares of peatland-based forests have been cleared. As a consequence, Indonesia - the world's largest producer of palm oil - temporarily surpassed the United States in terms of greenhouse gas emissions in 2015. Indonesia's peatlands cover less than 0.1% of the earth's surface, but produce over 4% of global carbon emissions. Every year huge wildfires burn out of control across the peatland-based rainforests and can end up destroying villages and anything else that is in the way. The resulting haze from the fire can last for months at a time and can be seen from space, as was made clear in the terrible fires that raged for hundreds of miles across Indonesia in 2015. The smog can stunt or kill crops and causes health problems for thousands of people each year.

As rainforests are cleared, animals are forced into smaller and smaller pockets of forest. In the process of clearing the land, animals are killed by the logging or are burnt by fires and killed by the smoke. Animals such as orangutans have also been found buried alive or killed by palm oil workers with machetes, guns and other weapons. Palm oil development also allows poachers easy access to rainforest, further endangering already endangered animals. Animals that have become endangered because of palm oil include the Sumatran Tiger, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Sun Bear, Pygmy Elephant, Clouded Leopard, Proboscis Monkey and Bornean and Sumatran Orangutan. In the last 20 years over 90% of orangutan habitat has been destroyed.

Palm oil and Human Conflict:

As well as all these environmental effects, palm oil companies have been known to force whole indigenous villages off their land, often without re-compensating the families for all that they lost. Human rights violations are everyday occurrences on plantations where companies having been found to use child and slave labour, there have also been instances of illegal immigrants being used in Malaysia. In 2011 Wilmar (one of the world's largest palm oil producers) illegally destroyed an entire village in Indonesia as the village was in the way of a planned 40,000 hectare plantation, yet land-grabbing scenarios like this are sadly common and the government usually turns a blind eye as companies such as Wilmar carry huge power within the government. If the people resist they are often forcibly removed with none of their possessions and can be mistreated. There have been over 5,000 land conflicts linked to palm oil expansion in Indonesia alone. If the workers are paid, it is on a minimum that is barely enough to live on however on the other side of the divide PepsiCo's CEO Indra Nooyi earnt $29,800,000 off the destruction of millions of acres of pristine, untouched rainforest in 2016. PepsiCo are one of the world's largest single users of palm oil.

Health Effects:

Palm oil also causes lots of detrimental health effects. Palm oil is very high in palmitic acid and saturated fats; these make up 44% of palm oil's composition and causes a build up of cholesterol in arteries, which can lead to strokes and heart attacks and is also known as a cause of obesity. Palm kernel oil, which is often used for cocoa icings, ice cream and caramel, contains up to 80 percent saturated fat. Palm oil can also cause cardiovascular diseases. Heating palm oil produces free radicals which can cause chronic disease. Palm oil also contains large amounts of fatty acid esters that can cause damage to DNA and create cancers within the body.