No palm oil November - week 2

Date: Sunday 15 November

Week 2: Should rephrase the pledge to "doing the best I can under the circumstances" - meaning that each product label is a challenge in itself. Palm oil has so many names and numbers, for example E471 - more on that coming up! Sometimes you actually have to peel off a top layer of the label on cosmetics products to find the ingredients. 

On a happy note, I am advised that all the bread from Goodfellow and Steven is palm oil free and we have a local shop where their bread can bel sliced. No reply from Hovis! - So will phone them again. Otherwise will keep looking for a supermarket option for P.O. free bread - Bahlsen winning on biscuits so far! 

The pizza isle - if you don't have time to make pizza dough at home then Dr Oetker is a safe choice. That's the thing - who has time to check the small (tiny) print when supermarket shopping for a family, when budgets are tight and faced with wall to wall chiller cabinets and shelves of options. Why should the onus be on the consumer, when the food industry giants are making such profits? What responsibility are they taking over rainforest destruction? - There's something to follow up. 

My biggest saddness this week is seeing the increasing expanses of Christmas chocolate "goodies". The cheaper the advent calendar, the more certain you can be that there is palm oil in there and that's apart from the packaging nightmare. Cadbury and Mondelez profits must be looking good. Locally, All Things Fair and NeighbourFood sell Divine Chocolate, Fairtrade chocolate and other brands - Montezuma is good but not easy to find. Lindt's hollow Santas and Reindeer are okay but nothing with a yummy, soft, creamy filling sadly! Tony Chocolonely from Sainsbury's is worth supporting. 

Off in search of a P.O. free haggis (yes, really) and some suitable oatcakes for 30th November. I recall a bakery on TV comparing the costs and taste of making biscuits and cakes with butter or P.O. Easy to guess why economics wins over sustainability. 

E471 is the number for emulsifiers and can be from vegetable (including palm oil) or animal fats or a mix. It is also know as mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids. 

Follow these links to the Orangutang Foundation and Ethical Consumer to find out more about the environmental effects of palm oil and for tips on how you can be a more eco-wise shopper. 

Kay

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