December 19, 2018 • 5 mins
Palm oil is in lots of foods, cosmetics, and household products -- and that's a very serious thing. Learn the problems (and solutions) that palm oil presents in this episode of BrainStuff.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff.
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and you might not know what palm
oil is, but chances are, without realizing it, you consume
it in some form or many different ones every day.
It's an ingredient and about half of all packaged products
sold at the supermarket, from instant noodles and ice cream
(00:22):
to pizza and packaged bread, and it's also found in lipsticks, soap, shampoo,
and detergent. In other countries, it's heavily used as a
biofuel for cars and trucks. Indeed, the world consumed seventy
five point eight million tons that's about sixty eight point
eight million metric tons of palm oil in alone, which
amounted to more than a third of all of the
(00:42):
vegetable oils used on the planet. Palm oil's ubiquitous presence
and the world's growing consumption of it has a lot
of environmental activists deeply worried. The Union of Concerned Scientists,
for example, warns that cultivation of the oil palm tree,
which produces the fruit from which palm oil is extracted,
is driving the hutting down and burning of tropical rainforests
in Southeast Asia, which is increasing health risks from pollution
(01:05):
and pumping planet warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as
well as driving animals such as orangutans, tigers, rhinoceros, and
elephants from their habitats. So what is palm oil anyway,
and how did it get to be so ubiquitous in
modern civilization. It wasn't always that way. Palm oil is
produced from the fruit of the oil palm tree, which
is native to West Africa for centuries. It's been part
(01:27):
of the traditional diet in that region as a source
of fat and other nutrients, and is utilized as a
cooking oil and an ingredient in folk medicines. While the
palm oil that's processed for use in products is tasteless,
palm oil grown in the traditional fashion in West Africa
actually has an intense taste. It's an ingredient in soups
and other dishes. Farmers planted it in forests as both
part of agriculture and forestry, but the oil palm didn't
(01:50):
stay in Africa. Europeans brought the oil palm to Southeast
Asia in the eighteen hundreds and tried growing it on plantations,
but it didn't start catching on in a big way
until the mid nine teen sixties. One big booster was
the World Bank, which spent nearly one billion dollars to
fund oil palm cultivation in an effort to promote economic
development and lift people in rural areas out of poverty.
(02:11):
About half of that money went to fund a series
of projects in Indonesia, which became the world's biggest producer.
Between the nineteen sixties and the two thousands, the amount
of land devoted to growing oil palm cultivation increased eightfold
and spread to tropical areas across the globe. We spoke
with Jeff Connt, director of Friends of the Earth's International
Forests Program, which works to protect the rights of forest
(02:32):
dependent people's by addressing the economic issues driving forest destruction.
He explained the plant was improved and hybridized, and varieties
were developed that grew very well in large monoculture plantations.
Palm oil became a lucrative crop to grow. It's efficient
in terms of crop yield per acre of land. Additionally,
new uses were developed. Cotton said it's good for replacing
(02:54):
margarine in that it's got a high melting point and
when it's refined, it has no flavor that makes it
good for baking. In the mid two thousands, after the
US Food and Drug Administration started requiring the listing of
trans fats on nutrition labels because they were linked to
heart disease, processed food manufacturers began looking to palm oil
as a trans fat free alternative. Then, around the same time,
(03:15):
the US and other Western nations drafted environmental laws encouraging
the use of vegetable oils such as palm oil is
fuel as a way to reduce carbon dioxide output and
slow global warming. But that well intentioned move backfired because
the clearing and burning of forests for palm oil cultivation
actually led to the release of massive amounts of carbon
that had been stored in the peat on forest floors.
(03:37):
Conna explained, oil palm trees often grow best in places
where rainforests were It's definitely a factor in deforestation. Oil
palm cultivation brought other problems as well. Monoculture cultivation is
needed to produce a profit, and that wears out the
soil after twenty five or thirty years, Content said, leaving
the land unusable without intense and expensive effort. And while
(03:58):
the palm oil industry provide employment for millions of people.
It's also been plagued by accusations of human rights abuses,
including the use of child workers. December eighteen article in
Sierra Magazine, for example, describes Guatemalans working sixteen hour days
on oil palm plantations and suggests the use of oil
palm cultivation contributes to food scarcity because it's taking up
land where local farmers otherwise could be growing corn, beans, rice,
(04:21):
and other subsistence crops. In response to the growing criticism
of palm oil, various stakeholders, agricultural producers, manufacturers who use
palm oil and products, banks and investors, and some environmental organizations,
among others, has started a movement to promote sustainable palm oil.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, founded in two thousand four,
(04:42):
has established a set of principles which includes avoiding use
of forests that provide habitat to endangered species, reduction in
the use of pesticides and burning to clear land, fair
treatment of workers according to local and international labor standards,
and consulting with local communities before new plantations are developed.
According to the RSPO website, nine of global palm oil
(05:02):
production is now certified as sustainable, but in addition to
promoting sustainability, it's crucial to stop the growth of oil
palm cultivation and reduce the amount of land devoted to it.
Consumers can help drive such change. Knat said, because most
palm oil in the US is found in junk food
and cosmetics, the best way to avoid it is to
not eat junk food. Today's episode was written by Patrick
(05:29):
Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. Check out our
online shop at public dot com slash brainstuff, and for
more on this and lots of other sustainable topics, visit
our home planet, how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff.
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and you might not know what palm
oil is, but chances are, without realizing it, you consume
it in some form or many different ones every day.
It's an ingredient and about half of all packaged products
sold at the supermarket, from instant noodles and ice cream
(00:22):
to pizza and packaged bread, and it's also found in lipsticks, soap, shampoo,
and detergent. In other countries, it's heavily used as a
biofuel for cars and trucks. Indeed, the world consumed seventy
five point eight million tons that's about sixty eight point
eight million metric tons of palm oil in alone, which
amounted to more than a third of all of the
(00:42):
vegetable oils used on the planet. Palm oil's ubiquitous presence
and the world's growing consumption of it has a lot
of environmental activists deeply worried. The Union of Concerned Scientists,
for example, warns that cultivation of the oil palm tree,
which produces the fruit from which palm oil is extracted,
is driving the hutting down and burning of tropical rainforests
in Southeast Asia, which is increasing health risks from pollution
(01:05):
and pumping planet warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as
well as driving animals such as orangutans, tigers, rhinoceros, and
elephants from their habitats. So what is palm oil anyway,
and how did it get to be so ubiquitous in
modern civilization. It wasn't always that way. Palm oil is
produced from the fruit of the oil palm tree, which
is native to West Africa for centuries. It's been part
(01:27):
of the traditional diet in that region as a source
of fat and other nutrients, and is utilized as a
cooking oil and an ingredient in folk medicines. While the
palm oil that's processed for use in products is tasteless,
palm oil grown in the traditional fashion in West Africa
actually has an intense taste. It's an ingredient in soups
and other dishes. Farmers planted it in forests as both
part of agriculture and forestry, but the oil palm didn't
(01:50):
stay in Africa. Europeans brought the oil palm to Southeast
Asia in the eighteen hundreds and tried growing it on plantations,
but it didn't start catching on in a big way
until the mid nine teen sixties. One big booster was
the World Bank, which spent nearly one billion dollars to
fund oil palm cultivation in an effort to promote economic
development and lift people in rural areas out of poverty.
(02:11):
About half of that money went to fund a series
of projects in Indonesia, which became the world's biggest producer.
Between the nineteen sixties and the two thousands, the amount
of land devoted to growing oil palm cultivation increased eightfold
and spread to tropical areas across the globe. We spoke
with Jeff Connt, director of Friends of the Earth's International
Forests Program, which works to protect the rights of forest
(02:32):
dependent people's by addressing the economic issues driving forest destruction.
He explained the plant was improved and hybridized, and varieties
were developed that grew very well in large monoculture plantations.
Palm oil became a lucrative crop to grow. It's efficient
in terms of crop yield per acre of land. Additionally,
new uses were developed. Cotton said it's good for replacing
(02:54):
margarine in that it's got a high melting point and
when it's refined, it has no flavor that makes it
good for baking. In the mid two thousands, after the
US Food and Drug Administration started requiring the listing of
trans fats on nutrition labels because they were linked to
heart disease, processed food manufacturers began looking to palm oil
as a trans fat free alternative. Then, around the same time,
(03:15):
the US and other Western nations drafted environmental laws encouraging
the use of vegetable oils such as palm oil is
fuel as a way to reduce carbon dioxide output and
slow global warming. But that well intentioned move backfired because
the clearing and burning of forests for palm oil cultivation
actually led to the release of massive amounts of carbon
that had been stored in the peat on forest floors.
(03:37):
Conna explained, oil palm trees often grow best in places
where rainforests were It's definitely a factor in deforestation. Oil
palm cultivation brought other problems as well. Monoculture cultivation is
needed to produce a profit, and that wears out the
soil after twenty five or thirty years, Content said, leaving
the land unusable without intense and expensive effort. And while
(03:58):
the palm oil industry provide employment for millions of people.
It's also been plagued by accusations of human rights abuses,
including the use of child workers. December eighteen article in
Sierra Magazine, for example, describes Guatemalans working sixteen hour days
on oil palm plantations and suggests the use of oil
palm cultivation contributes to food scarcity because it's taking up
land where local farmers otherwise could be growing corn, beans, rice,
(04:21):
and other subsistence crops. In response to the growing criticism
of palm oil, various stakeholders, agricultural producers, manufacturers who use
palm oil and products, banks and investors, and some environmental organizations,
among others, has started a movement to promote sustainable palm oil.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, founded in two thousand four,
(04:42):
has established a set of principles which includes avoiding use
of forests that provide habitat to endangered species, reduction in
the use of pesticides and burning to clear land, fair
treatment of workers according to local and international labor standards,
and consulting with local communities before new plantations are developed.
According to the RSPO website, nine of global palm oil
(05:02):
production is now certified as sustainable, but in addition to
promoting sustainability, it's crucial to stop the growth of oil
palm cultivation and reduce the amount of land devoted to it.
Consumers can help drive such change. Knat said, because most
palm oil in the US is found in junk food
and cosmetics, the best way to avoid it is to
not eat junk food. Today's episode was written by Patrick
(05:29):
Jake Tiger and produced by Tyler Clang. Check out our
online shop at public dot com slash brainstuff, and for
more on this and lots of other sustainable topics, visit
our home planet, how stuff works dot com.
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