AIBU to ask you for your ready made vegetarian pie recommendations with no palm oil in please??

[Palmoilallovertheshop]

Posting here for traffic. I am finding it impossible to find a ready made vegetarian pie or pack of pies that don’t contain any palm oil or palm fat. What the heck happened to butter?? We have recently sworn off the stuff for environmental reasons. But also now avoiding it after reading a recent article in the Guardian about it encouraging cancer metastasis. It seems to be the ubiquitous baked goods ingredient. Although we did find lidl mini mince pies don’t have it. If anybody knows of any vegetarian or vegan ready made pies I can buy I’d be grateful 😊

FNK pies on Yumbles is palm oil free, lots of options and I've always enjoyed them 😊

Didn’t Iceland make a thing of not using palm off in their products? I’ve not shopped there so cannot comment on whether they do have and vegetarian pies

Well, most processed foods are made down to a price which is what happened to butter.

The thing about palm oil is that it is the only vegetable fat which is naturally solid at room temperature and therefore of much use in commercial baking. Other oils such as olive and sunflower are obviously hydrogenated to make solid margarine, but this makes it considerably more expensive than palm oil.

I can't speak to the health side, but honestly I think sustainable palm oil is far better than the alternatives. Other oil alternatives require larger amounts of co2, water and more wide scale deforestation

Thanks for the replies and recommendations. @Gottahavehighhopes I never thought about it as a food that could be bad for your health other than the fact that it was fat until I read this - it’s pretty nasty stuff if this turns out to be correct. Also it just seems to be in so many foods.
www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/10/fatty-acid-found-in-palm-oil-linked-to-spread-of-cancer

Try Iceland, I don't think they use any palm oil.

@Gottahavehighhopes

I can't speak to the health side, but honestly I think sustainable palm oil is far better than the alternatives. Other oil alternatives require larger amounts of co2, water and more wide scale deforestation

If you believe that sustainable palm exists in significant quantities, which I don’t . I’m happy to be proved wrong, of course.

@Chemenger but neither do the others.

For example Iceland removing palm seems like a good move but presumably they aren't removing oils all together, I've rarely seen any products do that what they always do is stick a palm oil free sticker and switch the oil to something even less sustainable, using more land and more resources but at least its palm oil free eh?

I'm not saying palm oil is good, lots of work needs to be done to get sustainable palm oil properly regulated and the default. I've never seen an alternative oil that hasn't been as bad imo

British rape seed oil? Doesn’t replace palm directly, of course, because it’s liquid at normal temperatures and there are questions about pesticides. What annoys me most about palm oil is that it is added to all sorts of things that shouldn’t need fat at all. Try buying a piece of meat for roasting in Sainsburys that doesn’t have added palm oil, for example. (I wrote to them asking for an explanation and got no reply). Presumably this is because animals are raised to have so little fat that it needs to be added.

I'd try Iceland too. They seem to be the leaders with things like this

Honestly the only way I have found to avoid nasty stuff is to cook & bake from scratch at home.

Im always horrified when I buy a baked product in a shop that should only have 5 or 6 ingredients and in fact has about 20 with loads of weird processed crap.

Try buying a piece of meat for roasting in Sainsburys that doesn’t have added palm oil, for example.

What? Does a raw roasting joint from the fresh meat section have palm oil added?

Look out for products that are labelled "all butter". They tend to be in the more expensive "Finest" ranges. Still check the ingredients though, as sometimes palm oil still sneaks in.

Honestly you might be better making your own, or looking for a ready-rolled "all butter" pastry sheet.

@DeepaBeesKit

Try buying a piece of meat for roasting in Sainsburys that doesn’t have added palm oil, for example.

What? Does a raw roasting joint from the fresh meat section have palm oil added?

The last time I looked almost all of them did.

We had pukka vegan chicken and mushroom pies last night. Lovely but no idea If they have palm oil.

Following on, I’ve just had a quick look at Sainsburys online and it looks as though they don’t do this any more. Maybe I owe them an apology.

There's about a hundred hits on this search and the only one which has palm oil is the meat free joint-substitute. The BBQ sauces all seem to use rapeseed oil.

But to revert to the OP's question, I think the answer is to go for Iceland own brand or look for something labelled "all-butter".
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/SearchResults/joint

So! Iceland seems to be the place to be to avoid palm oil. They have a Brie and cranberry pastry. Something called a “no bull Wellington” and a cranberry nut roast all of which are palm free. So I’m going to try them out if I can find them in the store. They all seem pretty processed though. One of us is pescatarian the rest eat meat and fish. So it’s finding something to sub in when the rest of us have a say a Sunday roast or Christmas dinner. Would love to bake something from scratch or scratch-ish but don’t really have the time. I did have a look at ready made pastry - filo etc but even they have palm oil! Now I’ve started looking I’m amazed how many items have it. We have stopped things like the multi packs of chocolate biscuits for lunch boxes, ans switched to Nairn’s oat biscuits, or shortbread. The “All butter” too is a good one, so far all of the all butter foods have been palm free.