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Can Palm Oil Ever Be Replaced? And Should It? - Offrange

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If you eat peanut butter, wash your hair, or brush your teeth, you’re most likely a palm oil consumer. For food and personal care companies, its versatility and low cost makes it a wonder ingredient. Read Next Food Companies Are Gung-Ho for Greenhouse Gas Scores — But Are They Just Greenwashing? Bovines and Biocrusts Do Sheep Under Solar Panels Count as Clean Energy? Palm oil is present in 50% of packaged goods, from crackers to chocolate to detergent to skin cream: It can be used to enhance spreadability, as an emulsifier, a moisturizer, or to provide a pleasant texture. Palm oil is the world’s most prolific oil crop per acre — but it also has deforestation and labor exploitation baggage that has severely damaged its global reputation. It only grows in sensitive tropical climates near the equator, leading to heavy deforestation in the 1990s that accelerated during the aughts. In the bad old days of 2012, over 850 square miles of forest was bulldozed and burnt in Indonesia alone (that’

Though the $70 billion palm oil industry has made real progress in reducing deforestation, biotech companies are trying to brew up synthetic alternatives. If you eat peanut butter, wash your hair, or brush your teeth, you’re most likely a palm oil consumer. For food and personal care companies, its versatility and low cost makes it a wonder ingredient. Read Next Food Companies Are Gung-Ho for Greenhouse Gas Scores — But Are They Just Greenwashing? Bovines and Biocrusts Do Sheep Under Solar Panels Count as Clean Energy? Palm oil is present in 50% of packaged goods , from crackers to chocolate t

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