Palm Oil Kernels (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We at Live Green Be Green say, “Time to pass on the palm!”
As a result of palm oil farming, roughly 300 football fields of forest are cleared every hour (WWF). That is roughly 720,000 yards a day! Development of palm oil plantations is among the major leading causes of all deforestation and the leading contributor to diminishing great ape and wildlife populations worldwide. Animals are poached and forests are burned to the ground, just to make way for this unnecessary plant product.
“It is so serious that within the next 10 – 25 years there will be no wild chimpanzees, gorillas or bonobos (let alone Orangutans) if the Palm Oil industry continues on its current forest cutting trajectory.” -Lori Robinson in 1 Sweet Way To Really Help wildlife
We as consumers can end the destruction! We simply need to stop buying products that contain palm oil or palm kernel oil now. Its that simple. The first step in the right direction is to generate universal awareness in terms of which products contain the oil. Palm Oil is commonly used in a wide variety of products. While some products have it listed in the ingredients/ health and nutrition facts, many companies hide it by intentional mislabeling as vegetable oil or leaving it out all together. Everyday known products that contain palm oil include: candy such as Kit Kat, Butterfinger and PayDay, Pringles, Nutella, Johnson and Johnson Bay Oil, Dove Soap, Gillette Shaving creams and Colgate toothpaste, to name a few.
Another reason to avoid palm oil products is that palm oil is relatively unhealthy. In relation to equivalents such as butter, palm oil is significantly higher in saturated fat levels. According to eatingwell.com palm oil is 80% saturated fat with 22 grams of saturated fat contained in just two teaspoons. To put that into perspective, two teaspoons of regular butter only contain 14 grams of saturated fat. Also, research has shown that palmitic acid caused mice to become resistant to the appetite-suppressing hormones leptin and insulin, which in theory could make them eat more.
Products containing palm oil
We here at LGBG ask you to share this post with at least one friend to help spread the word and stop the destruction. Also, please sign the petition at orangutans.org and pledge to save our forests and our wildlife and fight the palm oil industry altogether. http://www.orangutan.org/how-to-help/sign-the-petition
Last but not least, please take a look at the video below for a first an even more in depth look at the destruction cause by Palm Oil.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T–15EC72J0&w=560&h=315]
Sources:
- http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/palm_oil/fact_sheet/
- http://www.eatingwell.com/blogs/health_blog/the_dangerous_ingredient_you_re_eating_and_don_t_even_know_it
- http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/rumble_in_the_jungle1/
- http://africainside.org/2013/10/22/halloween-candy-without-palm-oil/
- http://ran.org/cargill-case-studies-and-videos