To be disappointed that COOK use palm oil?

[clairemcnam]

I but meals from COOK when I can't be bothered cooking. The initial selling point of COOK was that they only used ingredients you would find in your own kitchen. I went there today and chose a main meal, and went to choose a pudding. I chose one but there seemed to be a lot of ingredients, so read them, and was surprised to read palm oil.
COOK really need to up their game. I said to the assistant that I didn't know they used palm oil, and he confirmed yes they did.

So AIBU to have expected better of COOK?

On positive side came home and have started to make a rhubarb crumble instead.

OP glad you flagged this up

my dad died last year and I must be honest, the stress of everything, plus constant visits to mum - quite a long trek - has left me existing on ready meals. I was thinking of getting a big order in from Cook so they could just be even more ready

but probably what I'm buying now isn't much worse!

The RSPO logo is bullshit. There is research to show palm oil RSPO certified is just as bad.
The comparisons between other kinds of oil are not honest. They talk about how much land is used, neglecting to mention there is a big difference between olives grown in land that has been used for this purpose for hundreds of years, and palms grown on what was recent tropical rainforest.
Yes I do eat some meat. But there are very easy oil substitutes for palm oil that are better for the environment, tastes better and are healthier. The ONLY reason palm oil is used is because it is cheaper. And until a few years ago, ready meals and processed food in the UK did not use palm oil.

COOK filled a market gap of quality ready made meals that no one else was filling. The beauty was that I did not have to look at lists of ingredients, which I do everywhere else I shop. That has gone now.

Grace You might be able to get better ready meals at COOK, you just have to read the ingredients. Which I know when you are eating ready made meals because of a stressful life, is not what you always want to do.

I buy from Cook and didn't know this. This is a shame and I'll read the ingredients carefully next time I'm there.

Since you are talking about substitutes, there are also many great tasting, healthier, and often cheaper meat substitutes. This will have a bigger impact then avoiding palm oil.

Yes I know, I used to be vegan.

But I still expect better from COOK.

So you're no longer vegan?

To quote you, Fine, you don't care about the environment.

Presumably however you're more open to shades of grey when your own choices are in question?

Gwen Just don't eat it then. I love when people bring cakes into work.

The Op on another thread

Out of curiosity. Do you probe the baker to ensure all palm oil free?

www.pnas.org/content/115/1/121

TL:DR Certification lowered deforestation by 33% BUT too little of the forest area is covered by the certification and the certification would need to be more widely held and stringently monitored and enforced for the RSPO to have any real effect.

So the RSPO do more than nothing but could do much more.

p.s. It's unfair to pick on the OP for no longer being vegan, we can all do more and making a stand about something is better than doing nothing. I can't stand the attitude that unless you're doing everything you shouldn't do everything.

I can't stand the attitude that unless you're doing everything you shouldn't do everything.

should be - I can't stand the attitude that unless you're doing everything you shouldn't do anything.

gamerwidow
The RSPO has not defined many requirements for ‘sustainable’ palm oil. Many big producers of ‘sustainable’ palm oil can’t indicate where all their palm oil is being produced and often sell their palm oil with the RSPO label for a long time before the plantations are actually examined. The rules for getting a RSPO certificate are also misleading. For example, a palm oil company that has one plantation that meets the sustainability requirements is allowed to sell all its palm oil with the sustainable palm oil label, even when the other plantations are not sustainable. In addition, there is no clear seperation of sustainable and non-sustainable palm oil as palm oil from different plantations are always mixed. Therefore, companies mostly buy a nice sounding certificate and not palm oil that is any more sustainable than ‘ordinary’ palm oil.
In addition, there have been many reports that companies with a RSPO certificate that don’t follow the sustainability requirements can easily get away with it. Many plantations are located in the middle of nowhere and are difficult to inspect. Even when inspections have found out that a company has violated environmental or human rights regulations, it often takes years before this has any consequences. For example, in 2010 organisations filed a complaint against palm oil producer IOI, when it became public knowledge that the company had illegally stolen land and destroyed thousands of hectares of rainforest. It took 6 years before the the RSPO took action and suspended IOI’s certificate. Five months later, IOI reentered the RSPO and regained its certificate. Of several other big companies it is also known that they violate regulations and illegally steal land and destroy huge amounts of rainforest, but unfortunately the RSPO often does not take any action at all.

Anyway commercial dictacts alone should mean that COOK should not use palm oil. Its target market are likely also to avoid palm oil as I do.

Oh yes I agree in the past RSPO have been rubbish but they adopted new stricter guidelines in 2018 that I think should be cautiously welcomed.
Anyway whether we agree is neither here nor there and if you don’t want to use any palm oil at all that’s your prerogative.
If you’re right about COOK’s target market they’ll vote with their wallets once they realise.

Yes I know in 2018 they adopted stricter guidelines, but the issue is about enforcement. If they don't actually check if producers are doing what they say they are doing, then it is meaningless.

I can't stand the attitude that unless you're doing everything you shouldn't do everything.

I agree. The OP declared upthread that anyone who doesn't care about palm oil "doesn't care about the environment". Which I think is bollocks.

I was pointing out that there are environmental issues (meat production) that the OP clearly chooses not to prioritise herself and she presumably doesn't feel that that means she doesn't care about the environment.

The person who said that about palm oil was dismissing the idea that anyone would be worried about such an issue at all.

How disappointing. YANBU, OP. I would have hoped for better from Cook.

I'm afraid probably the only certain way to avoid eating palm oil is to cook everything oneself from scratch. As PPs have said, it's in virtually every processed food you can think of.