Proponents of the Mediterranean diet often extol the virtues of olive oil, a widely used, heart-healthy fat that comes from olives. But it’s far from the only oil out there and, in fact, is dwarfed in ubiquity by palm oil, a type of oil that’s found in a wide range of foods and other products.
“Palm oil is a vegetable oil that comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree,” explains Megan Wroe, wellness manager and registered dietitian at St. Jude Medical Center in Southern California.
It’s extracted from the mesocarp, the reddish pulp of the fruit of oil palms. These trees originally hail from Western Africa, says Nichole Dandrea-Russert, the nutritionist behind purelyplanted.com and the author of “The Fiber Effect.” However, she adds, “they can grow in any tropical climate where heat and rainfall are abundant.”
Because it’s relatively affordable to produce, highly versatile, pale in color and odorless, palm oil has become a staple of the American industrial food system, says Dana Ellis Hunnes, a senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Medical Center, assistant professor at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and author of “Recipe For Survival.” It can be found in everything from food items and supplements to beauty products, detergents and biofuels.
Palm oil makes foods creamier and adds to their shelf life, plus it doesn’t have the trans fats that come with other types of hydrogenated oils (in hydrogenated oils, hydrogen atoms are added to fat molecules via a chemical process to achieve the same consistency). It all adds up to a wonder product of sorts that solves a lot of problems for food packagers and other producers of consumer goods.
Dandrea-Russert notes that while very small amounts may be present in some items, “it’s found in over 50% of consumer-packaged products. Big companies love the versatility of palm oil because it’s inexpensive, shelf-stable and can be used in everything from food to cosmetics to household cleaners, making it a very profitable ingredient.”
[READ: Best Diets for the Environment.]
What Items Contain Palm Oil?
Products that typically contain palm oil include:
— Crackers and snack foods.
— Cereal.
— Ice cream.
— Cookies.
— Chocolate products.
— Instant noodles.
— Peanut butter.
— Donuts and baked goods.
— Potato chips.
— Other convenience foods.
It’s also found in a range of other consumer products, including:
— Shampoos and body wash.
— Soaps and deodorants.
— Cosmetics and other personal products.
While this oil is found in many of the products you use each day, it’s got a big downside, Hunnes says. “It’s terrible for the environment and endangered species where it is produced.”
[See: How to Eat Meat if You Care About the Environment.]
How Palm Oil Is Manufactured
A major drawback to this very common ingredient is how it’s produced. Hunnes explains that to farm palm oil, virgin forests — primarily in Indonesia these days — are slashed and burned to create open space to plant oil-producing palm trees. “It is grown on these large plantations as a monocrop/monoculture, the only species on that farm,” she explains.
In addition to its connection with deforestation, palm oil farming has been linked to animal cruelty and abuses of Indigenous peoples’ rights, Dandrea-Russert says. “For example, homes may be taken away from Indigenous people in order to plant palm,” she says. “In some areas, palm oil plantations are linked to child slavery.”
What’s more, the destruction of rainforests to clear land for the farming of palm oil puts pressure on local species through habitat loss, Dandrea-Russert says. “Rainforest destruction is leading many species to extinction. For example, scientists estimate that orangutans could become extinct from the wild in the next 20 years. With no rainforests available, the orangutans are forced to live in palm plantations, which causes human-wildlife conflict. The orangutans may be viewed as an annoyance and either shot or babies are captured from their moms.”
Loss of rainforest acreage is also connected to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, in turn, higher global temperatures. The Amazon rainforest, for example, has long been described as the lungs of planet Earth because all those trees absorb and trap carbon from the atmosphere and help keep the planet cooler.
“When rainforests are cleared, a significant amount of carbon pollution is released, making palm oil a major driver of climate change. What’s more, the burning of the forest to make room for palm plantations creates pollution in the soil, air and fresh water, affecting nearby communities and contributing further to climate change,” Dandrea-Russert says.
All that said, Wroe notes that “while it is certainly true that the production of this oil has contributed to deforestation, the incredibly high yield of this tree actually means that it’s very efficient, and when comparing land use per yield, it’s far less impactful than soybean oil.”
[See: 13 Best Fish: High in Omega-3s — and Environment-Friendly.]
Health Benefits and Risks of Palm Oil
Palm oil can have some health benefits, “depending on how it’s processed,” Wroe says. Its high saturated fat content means it has “high shelf stability, so it’s not as susceptible to oxidation and becoming rancid as most other oils.” This is great if you need to store the oil for long periods.
Wroe adds that when palm oil is used as a cooking agent, it shares some similarities to coconut oil. Like coconut oil, palm oil is high in saturated fat and calories, so it should be used sparingly. “But it can certainly be used as part of a healthy diet in limited quantities,” Wroe says, adding that palm oil also contains “a high amount of antioxidants and unsaturated fatty acids, which can actually be cardio-protective.”
Antioxidants have been shown to protect cells from free radicals, which can damage the body’s cells and contribute to the development of cancer and other chronic diseases. Using heat to produce oil denatures, or changes the molecular composition of, the oil and destroys those antioxidants, removing that potential benefit.
Palm oil, however, is 50% saturated fat and contains 7 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon, Dandrea-Russert says. That type of fat has been linked with inflammation, diabetes, heart disease and gastrointestinal problems.
“That’s more than half of the saturated fat the American Heart Association recommends per day, which is 5% to 6% of calories,” she adds. If you’re consuming the average 2000-calorie-per-day diet, 5% to 6% saturated fat “would be a maximum of 11 to 13 grams of saturated fat a day.”
Dandrea-Russert adds that “palm oil is not a health food. In fact, it can be detrimental to human health and is absolutely detrimental to planetary health in today’s industrial environment.”
Wroe agrees: “The large majority of palm oil intake is in the form of ultra-processed foods and not as a cooking agent.” When this oil is refined, she adds, not only does the heat processing denature the antioxidants, but the oil is then often paired with foods with high sugar and salt content, such as breads, pizzas, frozen dinners, desserts and snacks, making it a less healthy option.
If you have or are at risk of developing heart disease, you need to monitor the fat intake in your diet and “should also be wary of this oil,” Wroe says.
Hunnes agrees that skipping the highly processed foods likely to contain palm oil is a good plan. These foods “are padding the coffers of the companies that produce them while being very detrimental to our health and the environment and the species we share this planet with.”
Aim to Reduce Consumption
For both environmental and health reasons, Wroe says it’s best to reduce your intake of highly processed foods that contain palm oil. Reducing demand for products that contain palm oil will also reduce “the extreme demand for vegetable oils in general, so that palm oil does not become the preferred processed food oil simply to meet consumer demand.”
Instead, opt for more sustainably produced oils such as:
— Canola or rapeseed oil.
— Sunflower seed oil.
However, these oils can also pose environmental concerns, especially if demand for them increases as a replacement for palm oil.
To avoid this, it’s best to select whole, locally grown produce rather than packaged food or those that are shipped great distances. In general, a plant-baseddiet that features mostly whole, unprocessed foods can support good health for you and the planet.
Dandrea-Russert says, “The best course of action is to read ingredient labels. If it says palm oil, put it back on the shelf. Taking individual action by not supporting companies that use palm oil can have a big impact.” Be aware that palm oil can go by a range of other names. The World Wildlife Fund notes that the following ingredients (and many others) may contain or be derived from palm oil:
— Vegetable oil.
— Palm kernel oil.
— Vitamin A palmitate.
— Palmate.
— Sodium laureth sulphate and sodium lauryl sulphate.
— Glyceryl stearate or stearic acid.
— Hydrogenated palm glycerides.
— Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate.
All that said, there are some palm oil products on the market that are sustainably produced, Dandrea-Russert notes. These products are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an organization that “enforces criteria and policies to help reduce the negative impacts of palm oil plantations on the environment, animals and communities.”
When these criteria for Certified Sustainable Palm Oil are properly applied, they “can help to minimize negative impacts. However, the RSPO’s certification provides no guarantee of palm oil produced without deforestation, species extinction or human rights abuses, and unfortunately, these companies may not be following sustainable practices,” says Dandrea-Russert.
In other words, buyer beware.
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Is Palm Oil Bad for You? originally appeared on usnews.com
