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Palm Oil...

We often receive inquiries from individuals concerned about whether we use palm oil in any of our products.

The answer is always an emphatic NO.

We, at Maclyn Grove are proud to say we have found a way to produce our natural olive oil based skin care products without the use of palm oil. Many have heard about the plight of the Orang-utan and how the harvesting of palm oil is contributing to their demise. Some authorities' say that the Orang-utan could be could be extinct by the year 2012.

With Palm oil plantations expanding into regions on the planet that are of the most bio-diverse ecosystems, including rainforests, grasslands and peat swamps in South America, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa, areas home to millions of plant and animal species, including highly endangered orangutans, clouded leopards, and sun bears.

Every day it is estimated that some 6000 hectares of virgin tropical forest disappears in Indonesia alone. This is could be home for some 30+ Orang-utans and millions of other living creatures.

The rapidly expanding palm oil trade, is the single greatest threat facing Orang-utans today. Rainforests are being cleared at the rate of 300 football fields per hour to make way for oil palm plantations.

While there are millions of hectares of degraded land that could be used for plantations, many oil palm companies choose to instead use rainforest land to gain additional profits by logging the timber first. Palm oil companies also frequently use uncontrolled burning to clear the land, resulting in thousands of Orang-utans being burned to death. Those that survive have nowhere to live and nothing left to eat.

So how do you make an informed choice about whether we need to use palm oil for everything from cooking to machine lubricant?

What is palm oil?
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the African oil palm tree. It is believed to have recently eclipsed soybean oil to become the world's most widely-produced edible oil. It is used in many foods, cosmetic and household products.

More recently it is being touted as a biofuel - despite evidence that the use of palm oil-based diesel actually increases greenhouse emissions. In non-food products like soaps and detergents, the list includes elaeis guineensis, sodium lauryl sulphate, cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, isopropyl and other palmitates, steareth-2, steareth-20 and fatty alcohol sulphates - all of which may be derived from palm oil.

Additives and agents such as emulsifiers (E471 is a common one), while only a small component of the overall product, can also be derived from palm oil. Other names to keep an eye out for that could be or be derived from palm oil are cocoa butter equivalent (CBE), cocoa butter substitute (CBS), palm olein and palm stearins.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand requirements, it is sufficient to have vegetable oil in the list of ingredients on the packet, even though the product contains palm oil. As a rule of thumb, if the saturated fat content is about 50%, there is a good chance that the vegetable oil will in fact be palm oil. Another thing to watch out for on the ingredients list is margarine. If the product contains margarine, it is highly likely that the margarine will have been derived from palm oil.

So there you have it -

While Palm oil itself is not 'bad for you' The massive destruction caused by humans who destroy natural forests to plant huge Palm oil plantations for future harvest, with no consideration for the rest of its inhabitants are the real baddies..

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