Nature: Palm-oil boom raises conservation concerns

Industry urged towards sustainable farming practices as rising demand drives deforestation

According to the article: "Palm oil was once touted as a social and environmental panacea — a sustainable food crop, a biofuel that could help to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and a route out of poverty for small-scale farmers. In recent years, however, a growing body of research has questioned those credentials, presenting evidence that palm-oil farming can cause damaging deforestation and reduce biodiversity, and that the oil’s use as a biofuel offers only marginal benefits for mitigating climate change."

The article goes on: " In principle, biodiesel made from palm oil could be environmentally friendly, because the carbon dioxide released when it is burned is roughly the same as that absorbed as the plant grows. But vast swathes of forest have been cut down to make way for the crop, often in carbon-rich peatlands, where tree burning and soil degradation release extra stores of the global-warming gas. A recent life-cycle assessment suggested that it could take up to 220 years for a plantation to become carbon neutral (W. M. J. Achten and L. V. Verchot Ecol. Soc. 16, 14; 2011).

In January, after the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that palm-oil fuels emitted only 11–17% less greenhouse gas than diesel over their entire life cycle, it suggested that the oil should not be classified as a renewable fuel."

Meanwhile obesity rates are rocketing not only in the developed world but now in China and India as well, and these may be linked to the increased use of palm oil - in a paper entitled Obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes in developing countries: role of dietary fats and oils. (J Am Coll Nutr. 2010 Jun;29(3 Suppl):289S-301S Authors: Misra A, Singhal N, Khurana L). "Developing countries are undergoing rapid nutrition transition concurrent with increases in obesity, the metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). From a healthy traditional high-fiber, low-fat, low-calorie diet, a shift is occurring toward increasing consumption of calorie-dense foods containing refined carbohydrates, fats, red meats, and low fiber."

But that is not the only health problem of palm oil; as the Centre for Science in the Public Interest (Washington DC):

"Palm oil, one of the world’s leading agricultural commodities, is widely used as a food ingredient and cooking oil. Unfortunately, not only does palm oil promote heart disease, but the vast plantations that grow oil palm trees have contributed to the destruction of the rainforest and wildlife of Southeast Asia. Those side effects are not broadly recognized—and avoided—by governments, food manufacturers, or consumers. A new U.S. government regulation requires that, by January 1, 2006, food labels list a product’s content of trans fat, which comes from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and is a major cause of heart disease. Many food processors are seeking to eliminate trans fat by switching to other oils. Palm oil is one such alternative. This report describes palm oil’s chief environmental and health impacts and encourages food processors, consumers, and government and international agencies to support the use of oils that are better for both human and environmental health. /// Palm oil is used around the world in such foods as margarine, shortening, baked goods, and candies. Biomedical research indicates that palm oil, which is high in saturated fat and low in polyunsaturated fat, promotes heart disease. Though less harmful than partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, it is far more conducive to heart disease than such heart-protective liquid oils as olive, soy, and canola. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, World Health Organization, and other health authorities have urged reduced consumption of oils like palm oil."

On the other hand, palm oil has the merit of being cheap...