Palm oil: the monoculture that kills the rainforest

Palm oil is the cheapest vegetable oil, which is why it is used the most worldwide and is found in over half of supermarket products. The palm tree itself is not the problem, but the huge request. Around 66,000,000 tons of palm oil are consumed each year. Huge rainforest areas are burned and cleared near the equator every day to make room for palm monocultures. Countless unique animals such as orangutans lose their habitat. The stored CO² is also released and a vicious cycle begins. Climate change is accelerated almost twice! Even bio-fuel is made with palm oil, although it is called "organic", it is three times more harmful to the climate than fuel. Since 2014, the list of ingredients for all products must always state which oil was used. Often, however, cosmetic products, detergents, soap and shampoos hide technical terms that serve as a synonym for "palm oil". If you want to avoid palm oil, you should know some of these terms. Palm oil can be hidden under the following terms: Cetearyl alcohol Cetyl alcohol Cetyl palmitate Elaeis Guineensis (the botanical name of the oil palm) Ethyl palmitate Ethylhexyl palmitate or octyl palmitate Fatty acid glyceride Glycerin (made from either coconut oil or palm oil for vegan products) Glyceryl (stearates) Glycerin fatty acid esters Hydrogenated fatty acid glycerides Lactyl lactic acid ester sodium salt / sodium lauryl sulfate Magnesium stearate Sodium dodecyl poly (oxyethylene) sulfate Sodium lauryl sulfate Palmates (e.g. sodium palmate - sodium salts of palm oil fatty acids) Palm fruit oil Palmitate Palmitic acid Palmitoyl oxostearamide Palmitoyl tetrapeptide-3 Palmityl alcohol or 1-hexadecanol Palm olein Palm stearin Vegetable fat Palm kernel Palm kernel oil Vegetable oil PEG-100 stearate Polyglyceryl-2-caprate Stearates Stearic acid Stearic acid Sodium cetearyl sulfate Sodium kernelate Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate Sodium palm kernelate Steareth -20 Zinc stearates

If it is too complicated to check all these terms, you can download the "Codecheck app" on your smartphone. With this app you only need to scan the product by the barcode and you know exactly whether it contains palm oil.

Another method that only partially avoids palm oil is to check the ingredient label, because wherever the word "palm" appears in the word, 100% palm oil is contained, regardless of whether at the beginning or in the middle of the word.

Sometimes the packaging of a product says "palm oil free".

It's good for the rainforest!