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