Happy New Year everyone! My resolution will be to tell people about palm oil and try to persuade the icelandic food companies to stop using palm oil in their products. Until then there will be no chocolate or biscuits containing palm oil or "vegetable oil" for me :)

Sælusápur

Here you can find wonderful Icelandic soaps that are completely palm oil free :) No more rainforest killing Dove or Palmolive soaps that seem to be almost the only brands available in the super markets in Iceland...

You can find the Sælusápur soaps in the farmers market Frú Lauga!

General Mills commits to sustainble palm oil by 2015

Not even Cheerios is safe from palm oil! General Mills markets Cheerios, Häagen-Dazs, Nature Valley, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Progresso, Yoplait, Cascadian Farm, Muir Glen, and more.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) campaigned agains General Mills in January 2010 and thankfully on the 22nd of September 2010 General Mills committed to 100% sustainable palm oil by 2015.

So as you can see, pressuring the companies DOES WORK! :)

Palm oil vs Coconut oil

There seems to be a slight confusion with palm oil and coconut oil. These products are both fram palm trees but two different species of palm.

Palm oil comes from oil palm Elaeis guineensis which has been planted in gigantic plantations all over Indonesia. These plantations are growing in size every day and virgin forest is cut down as we speak to make room for more oil palms.






The coconut oil come from the coconut palm Cocos nucifera, which is grown widepread in the tropics but does not have as great environmental impact as the oil palm. The future may reveal more problems but at the moment it is not considered a great risk to rainforests (suggestions and comments very welcome if anyone knows more about this).

Please boycott all Dove products!

Shopping guide 2!

Here is another list of products containing palm oil: Rainforest action group RAN but note its not a complete list. If you find your favourite products on the list you should write to the company and ask them to stop using palm oil. The more pressure the companies get the better.

Shopping guide!

Here is a simple shopping guide to avoid palm oil. The products in the picture contained palm oil as at 3/4/07.

Remember to READ THE LABEL! :) If in doubt, try to find another product!

Going palm oil free is not easy!

What is palm oil and why should we avoid it?

Here is an article from the independent
"What, then, is "unsustainable" palm oil? Step one: log a forest and remove the most valuable species for furniture. Step two: chainsaw or burn the remaining wood releasing huge quantities of greenhouse gas. Step three: plant a palm-oil plantation. Step four: make oil from the fruit and kernels. Step five: add it to biscuits, chocolate, margarine, soaps, moisturisers and washing powder. At breakfast, when millions of us are munching toast, we're eating a small slice of the rainforest."

And here is the shocking list of palm oil in the top 100 brands in Britain.

So by buying these products (and many many more) we are supporting the palm oil industry which may exterminate orangutans in 10 years. I have just moved back to Iceland and I went through all toiletries I had in the bathroom. Here is what I am throwing away because it contains palm oil!

It is tricky to find replacements (that work and do not cost an arm) but from now on I will try not buy any products that contain palm oil. But its not that simple because palm oil is not always labelled on the product. Sometimes the label says: "Vegetable oil". This is completely unacceptable! People should have the rights to know what they are buying but unfortunately most people do not care, they just buy things without question. This needs to change.