Trying to kill fewer orangutans over Christmas

[EvenPhilip]

Well not just over Christmas obviously. As a family we are trying to avoid palm oil, amongst other things, my dd is very vocal about us becoming more ethical in our shopping. I can't say it is easy though sometimes, I've given up my beloved Twirls and now it would appear Twiglets won't be making an appearance at Christmas.
I see quite a few posts about Palm oil in certain threads but wonder just what people would realistically give up?
Once you really start looking at labels it's bloody everywhere.

'Sustainable' palm oil means very little, there are very few regulations that are required for a palm oil source to be considered to be sustainable, and even then the oil is often grown in hard to reach areas that are very rarely monitored.
Boycotting palm oil will only make the situation worse, if people start boycotting it completely, manufacturers will replace it with another oil such as sunflower oil, which requires 5x the amount of crops to obtain the same amount of oil.
Over half of all palm oil produced goes into animal feed and animal agriculture. Therefore the only way to actually help improve the situation is reduce the amount of animal products you use/give up meat/ideally become vegan. But most people aren't willing to actually give up meat and would rather just buy a different brand of sausage roll

I'm not prepared to eat food that tastes of shit due to the presence of palm oil. I shall continue to eat meat, will never be a vegetarian let alone a vegan and make my own sausage rolls but thanks for the suggestion.

Gravy granules have palm oil in them. Bistro pork gravy doesn’t have it listed (unless it’s known as something else??).

Nor does Bisto Powder, which I prefer: Potato Starch, Salt, Wheat Starch, Colour (E150c), Onion Powder, Inactive Yeast Powder (contains Barley, Wheat).

No need to avoid palm oil. It's been a while since it was ok to burn down rainforests and plant African oil palm trees. It's had a lot of focus and sustainable ways of sourcing it have been found. It needs to be grown in topical areas but a lot of farmers living in tropical areas are opting to grow the tree's rather than keep live stock or grow other things as it's financially very viable and all supermarkets etc are rushing to find these sustainable farmers and their trees.

The trees can produce so much more oil than any other type of plant we can get oil from. If people boycott palm oil, deforestation will get worse as you need 3 to 4 times the amount of space to grow sunflowers for example to produce the same amount of oil that one area of the palm oil trees would produce.

It was also Rhinos, elephants and tigers, among other animals being put in danger due to the burning down of rainforests, not just orangutans.

Seriously, don't jump on a bandwagon based on what the media says. It was an issue and still is to a certain degree but much less than it used to be and no supermarket wants to buy palm oil off these dodgy people that burn down parts of rainforests and illegally plant trees. No one does so they've almost stopped doing it, almost. Not because of people boycotting but because farmers in Indonesia, North America, South America and Africa are seeing that they can use their land for these trees and make money. Before it was an almost totally illegal thing where rogues would burn down forests and plant them because no one cared where it came from.

We know now and the problem is not so much of a problem now. There is nothing wrong with palm oil, it was how it was being produced. Only some rogues in the know and benefitting. Buying the products will help to keep the sustainable farmers going and help people like WWF plant more trees in the burnt down rainforests meaning the whole world doesn't need to start growing 2, 3 or even 4 times as much other plants in order to compensate for the loss of palm oil

JenniferM1989 totally agree with you. And just to add - these palm oil farmers/plantation owners, they're not going to say "oh well, better let this plot of land turn into jungle again" if noone buys palm oil. They're going to choose to grow a different crop instead.

I was on holiday with some British friends in Borneo last year and they were saying how awful it was that there were so many palm oil plantations (and I agree that it wasn't what I wanted to see). But then taking a train ride through the UK countryside and looking out the window it was just the same here - the vast majority of land is farmland, not natural habitats at all.

@JenniferM1989 Do you have a source for that info?
(Not saying you're talking crap btw, but I 'd like to read it)

I am intolerant to palm oil so have had no choice but to stop buying products with it in. It's perfectly doable if you shop around.

I like shopping on Ocado as they have such a massive range of brands that I'm more likely to find stuff I can eat there than with any other shop.

I may be wrong but reading JenniferM1989's post I kept thinking if I had a vested interest in promoting palm oil, this is what I would be posting.

Have a look at IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature - Palm oil and biodiversity

It's a lengthy report but the following is a direct quote:

Palm oil needs to be produced more sustainably. A simple shift from palm oil to other oil crops is not a solution as it may lead to further biodiversity loss. Oil palm produces up to nine times more oil per unit area than other major oil crops, and can help meet global demand for vegetable oils that is estimated to grow from an annual 165 million tonnes now to 310 million tonnes in 2050.

Banning palm oil could result in diminished efforts to produce palm oil sustainably, and an increase in land used for producing other oils (mostly soy, sunflower and rapeseed) which is likely to shift biodiversity impacts to regions where those oils are produced.

Pleasantly surprised to find this: www.ocado.com/browse/free-from-organic-30489/free-from-46010/palm-oil-free-230097 I buy most of my food from Ocado and have never thought to check whether they had a palm-free aisle.

Mincemeat: I make my own from Delia Smith's recipe. I use Atora beef suet. So no palm oil, but of course cattle farming has all sorts of other issues and it's not vegetarian, far less vegan. There are, however, mincemeat recipes that don't use fat at all (they presumably don't keep as long, but that's not a dealbreaker). For shortcrust pastry I'd use either all butter or half butter and half lard (see above for other issues there).

Using next to no ready made food is probably the answer, but most of us want to eat our or get a takeaway or snack at some point. Not easy.