Packaged foods and cosmetics -- from corn chips and chocolate candy to lipstick and eye-liner -- all contain palm oil. It's almost impossible to avoid. It's also hard to exaggerate the damage from palm-oil production: deforestation, increased global warming, and abuses of human rights. But the palm-oil industry's growing fast — especially to replace trans fats, now being eliminated by the FDA to protect consumers from heart disease. With imports of palm oil having increased by 60% palm oil is here to stay. So, what will it take to mitigate all those destructive trade-offs?
The Dark Side of Going Heart Healthy
More
- Mongabay on palm oil's financiers
- High Carbon Stock study of the sustainable palm oil manifesto
- RSPO on strengthening relations between labor unions and oil palm plantations
- RAN on Obama Administration, Malaysian human trafficking on palm oil plantations
- Wall Street Journal on palm-oil migrant workers' abuses on Malaysian plantations
- RAN on the 'snack food 20'
- Reuters on scientists studying how to save forests, produce palm oil
Credits
Guests:
- Rhett Butler - Mongabay - @mongabay
- David Wilcove - Princeton University
- Jonathon Porritt - High Carbon Stock Study Steering Committee
- Danielle Morley - Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - @RSPOtweets
- Laurel Sutherlin - Rainforest Action Network - @RAN