Happy New Year!! Let it be a weird and wonderful year and most of all, let this year be big for the fight against climate change! 2020 we rise up!
Also happy 1st of January everyone, it is time for another sustainability challenge. This one was actually requested by a friend of mine who loves tigers and orangutans. I think this challenge is perfect for a 1st of January, because it might tie in nicely with new year’s resolutions of many people. It has to do with eating. No, I’m not going to put you on a hunger diet. You know me, food is love and I would never want to take that away from you.
But I am proposing to you to approach your food consumption with a little more mindfulness.
This month, I challenge you to cut unsustainable palm oil out of your diet.
That’s really hard! Because it is in so many things! And they hide it too. When reading the ingredients lists, you might find it hiding behind the names: palm oil, palm fat, palm glycerides, palmitate, palmate, etyl palmitate, glyceryl, palmitic acid, PKO (Palm Kernel Oil), Palm (kernel) olein, palmolein, palmityl +one of many chemical sounding words, elaeis guineensis … And so many more.
I’ve tried it before, and shopping started taking soooo long and I went crazy. So here’s what I propose: Love your body and cut highly processed foods from your diet. Instant ramen, soup, noodle cups, store bought cookies and crackers, cheap deep-freeze pizza, generally many cheap “bread”-products. That’s easy enough to do. You will help save rain forests and at the same time remove unhealthy, high sodium foods from your diet. Win-win!
If you want to learn more about palm oil, why it is a conservation issue, or if you want a longer list of palm oil ingredient names, you can check out the websites of the Rainforest Action Network or the Orangutan Alliance.
Title image by Tom Fisk via Pexels.com (edited)
Is Alsana Margarine from the health food store better or worse than butter, for the environment and or for your body?
It tastes fine and is cheaper would like your opinion
Without researching this into detail, I would guess that generally, the vegan option, so Alsan, is better for the climate, just because animal husbandry, particularly cows, has a huge foot print when it comes to green house gas emissions. I wrote a post about milk a while back you might find interesting. The ingredients list of Alsan starts with palm fat and coconut fat. But for this particular brand these are not only certified organic, but also RSPO Certified (meaning, from a sustainable source).
About RSPO: If you want to make sure the palm oil is from a sustainable source, you can look for the “RSPO – Certified Sustainable Palm Oil” seal on the packaging: it looks like a cross between the top of a palm tree and a globe. You can also contact the company and ask them about the type of plantations they get their ingredients from. The more customers care, the more the company will care.
On the health topic: while I am not an expert and cannot tell you whether sunflower oil is healthier than palm oil or not, I know that overall, plant fats are better for you than animal fats, containing less bad cholesterol and more good omega acids.
So in my opinion, go ahead! “Alsan-S” even has rapeseed oil as its main ingredient. Even better 🙂