Enviro News
PALM OIL FREE!
Why change away from palm oil?
The palm fruit yields two distinct oils: palm oil and palm kernel oil. Palm oil is extracted from the pulp of the fruit and is an edible oil used in food. Palm kernel oil is extracted from the seed of the fruit and is used in the manufacture of cosmetics.
Palm oil is in approxiamately 50% of packaged products on our shelves and Australia imports 130,000 tonnes of palm oil annually. An area of plantation 5 ½ times the size of Manhattan is needed to produce that much palm oil for Australians each year. Palm oil is used as a shortening in bakery to make biscuits and breads etc. It is also used for deep fat frying. Palm oil derivatives are used in costmetics as it makes things like shampoo creamier and is a carrier for other ingredients.
Whilst it is true that in some instances palm oil can be subsituted for an alternative vegetable oil, palm oil is an extremely versatile and abundant ingredient. The economic fact is that the abundance and the availability is why it is widely used in manufacturing personal and cleaning products. In Australia there is currently no law that mandates palm oil be labelled on the ingredients. The ingredient list may be labelled as 'vegetable oil', not telling you whether that 'vegetable oil' is palm oil or not.
Deforestation, land clearing and loss of animal habitat are among the outcomes of the worlds desire for this product.
Due to our customers desire to use products that are free from palm oil, enviroCare has been researching and trialling ingredients that will allow us to maintain the integrity and efficacy of our environmentally responsible range without the less than 2% palm oil used in a select part of our product range!
Finally, we have reached a point where we are happy with the end result and will start to manufacture the select PALM OIL FREE products.
News to hand is that the government is considering a recommendation that all food products containing palm oil be labelled as such.... more to follow....This can only be a good thing to try to contain the further distruction of habitat and rain forest.