Food products are often more importantly defined by what’s not in them rather than what is.
Vegan nutrition bars are among the most scrutinized products on the market. Among many ingredients omitted during the creation of Planet Protein’s products, palm oil is at the top of our list.
Palm oil represents 30% of the world’s vegetable oil production alone, and can be found in up to 50% of supermarket products in developed countries like the United States, Great Britain, and Australia.
Why is palm oil so bad?
Palm oil is one of the few edible products on Earth in which extraction methods constitute both a human rights and ecological disaster. See below for key facts on its total impact
Environmental Destruction
85% of the world’s palm oil supply is harvested from Malaysia and Indonesia.
The World Wildlife Fund estimates that an area the size of 300 football fields is cleared every hour for palm oil planting.
In the last 20 years, over 90% of orangutan habitat has been destroyed.
Animal Welfare
One third of all Indonesian mammals are considered critically endangered – including the Javan rhino, Orangutan, Sumatran tiger, and many more.
Roads and deforestation gives greater access to poachers, who kill for animal parts or kidnap juvenile orangutans to sell
Approximately 50,000 orangutans have been killed in the last 20 years as a result of palm oil harvesting.
Human Rights
Worker’s rights are nearly nonexistent on remote palm oil plantations.
Violations include child labor, untenable work hours, destitute living conditions, and unfair wages.
Brazen corporations continue to ravage the land and displace indigenous populations.
Palm oil’s destructive path and projected future is not reliant on doomsday speculation by wide-eyed environmentalists. The evidence of its torrid swathe is apparent all around us.
Thankfully, education about the dangers of palm oil is spreading. While our groceries are inundated with palm oil’s insidious presence, conscious alternatives are more abundant than ever.
Any company touting a pedigree of eco-consciousness should abstain from ever using palm oil in their products. A consumer base with a collaborative goal is the most powerful economic entity in the world. You can make a bold statement with your dollar!
