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vegplot

Palm oil offers no green solution

Good, perhaps the tigers and orangutans will be under less of a threat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7758542.stm
Mr O

I try to avoid products that contain palm oil, but it does turn up in unexpected places, I found a brand of peanut butter that contained palm oil the other day, why not just use peanut oil?
vegplot

Mr O wrote:
I try to avoid products that contain palm oil, but it does turn up in unexpected places, I found a brand of peanut butter that contained palm oil the other day, why not just use peanut oil?


I suspect there is considerable industry and lobbying pressure to use these products. If you supply something cheaply enough and in quantity it will be used, regardless of suitability. Then once the market has been prenertrated then producers can claim their product is essential.
James

vegplot wrote:
Mr O wrote:
I try to avoid products that contain palm oil, but it does turn up in unexpected places, I found a brand of peanut butter that contained palm oil the other day, why not just use peanut oil?


I suspect there is considerable industry and lobbying pressure to use these products. If you supply something cheaply enough and in quantity it will be used, regardless of suitability. Then once the market has been prenertrated then producers can claim their product is essential.


I'm not so sure thats the reason. Palm oil will make peanut butter firmer and not so obviously oily, while peanut oil will make peanut butter wetter, and without stabilises, liquid oil is more likely to seperate out and become a slick. Not a problem, as is its easily mixed back in, but your standard consumer wouldn't like it.

The painful truth of it is that palm oil is a good product, almost too good for the bulk food industry not to use.
mochyn

This is why I stopped using vegetarian suet (?). It's palm oil.
Helen_A

The veg suet I have here says that its a blend of sunflower and rape... I wonder where daily bread get it from??
James

there's two ways of getting hard, white veg oil- either by hydrogenating liquid vegetable oils, or by using palm oil.

Until recently, most white block oil was hydrogenated vegetable oils like sunflower and rape. A lot still is. By hydrogenating these normally liquid oils, a solid block fat is made which is high in trans-fatty acids. These are the things that are hated by healthy people
The perceived health risk associated with trans-fatty acids, hydrogenated vegetable oils and white fats has led many manufacturers to move away from liquid vegetable oil and replace it with palm oil.

Palm oil is low in trans-fatty acids, and is not hydrogenated, therefore is a less harmful to your health than 'traditional' white block fat. So the marketing men can produce these big blocks of fat and state quite positively that its a healthier option (...than the old stuff).

Helen_A's post is very interesting: her veg suet states clearly that it comprises of sunflower and rape. I recently looked at the ingredients of "crisp n' dry" white block fat. The ingredients are "vegetable oil". I checked on their web-site for more detail, no information. I emailed them asking if it contained palm oil and have as yet received no reply from Princes.

As far as I'm aware (and I may be wrong..) there's no cheap way to get a non hydrogenated white block vegetable oil without using palm oil

So the trick is:
1) if its vague on its oil ingredients ("vegetable oil")
2) if its solid vegetable oil claiming to be free from hydrogenated fat
3) if its cheap...
...then it probably contains palm oil

The solution is to not eat so much fat (not what the public or the food industry want to hear).
And when you do need hard fat, use lard. Even the cheapest generic lard is far more local and less environmentally harming than palm oil.
vegplot

Thanks James,. That pulls it into focus better.
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