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).
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).
Which one is the one that animal activists are protesting about killing orangutans and their environment, please? Thank you for the comment about sodium laurel sulfate (just found out it is a carcinogen).
ReplyDeletePalm oil. Avoid it at all costs. More and more of us vegans avoid it just as we do eggs, milk products, meat, fish, & poultry.
DeletePalm oil. Avoid it at all costs. More and more of us vegans avoid it just as we do eggs, milk products, meat, fish, & poultry.
DeletePlease do some research before boycotting a product. You may be unintentionally doing more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteIf we were to replace palm oil with, for example, coconut oil (which seems to be the alternative that is put forward) approximately three times more land will need to be cleared to produce the amount of oil the world uses.
Palm oil is the most efficient oil crop in terms of yield per hectare of land. It also scores well in other environmental aspects.
Palm oil is not the problem here, the government in countries where palm oil is produced is the problem.
We need to call on the governments of the countries where palm oil is grown to stop land clearing for crops and protect the rainforest they have left.
Find petitions, write to the governments.
Call on governments to have better environmental impact assessment procedures in place.
Let’s all call on the government to protect the rainforests they have left, let’s make them aware the world is watching.
Support sustainable palm oil companies, research the company if your unsure that they are actually sustainable.
And support charities that help the orangutans impacted by deforestation.
A few places to start your own research:
https://www.forumpalmoel.org/de
http://palmoilis.mpob.gov.my/publications/POD/pod51-erich.pdf
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/coconut-oil-revolution-how-green-really-andrea-himoff