MNN - Mother Nature Network

would have all died of heart diseases by now. I'm from Asia and my family consumed red palm oil for many years. There are no side effects on us after consuming red palm oil. Red palm oil does have nutritional values. I presumed you only did your research on american websites. Interestingly, I found many research articles and news articles about red palm oil on internet. There is no miracle food in this world but you need to have a balanced diet. Not just rely on one diet then assume it does miracle to you! Why people have belly fat? Because they lack of exercise and eat unhealthy food! The American government and EU trying to ban the sales of red palm oil by saying it destroys orang utan habitat etc. How about they themselves?? US is the world largest exporter of soybean oil. If palm oil gets popular, it threatens the sale of soybean oil. In the past, people use animal fat in cooking and yet heart diseases are not that common. Why? It's not because animal fat not good, it's the way people eat it and life style they adapt! In the end the American scientists come up with modified vegetable oil, they add hydrogen to the vegetable oil which is far worst than animal fat! And now they said all these are trans fat, so people should consume other oil. EU produces olive oil. For this, of course they criticise palm oil is a bad oil. Apparently many people can't differentiate the industrial used palm oil from the red palm oil. Because of the education they received in school, they are all brain washed to regard red palm oil as bad oil. As long as there's a word 'palm oil' in it, it is considered bad. This concept is definitely wrong! The western countries keep saying that they support sustainable palm oil. What is sustainable to you? Are all your farm crops from sustainable farm land? If you don't acquire a land for agriculture, keep insisting that everything must be sustainable, I bet there will be no food produced in this world because all food crops planted on land that were once forest and jungle. Deforestation required in order to build roads, build houses, farm land, reservoir etc. Do you ask your government why didn't they stop building houses so that the animals can have place to stay? The western countries trying to use 'sustainable' to stop the import of palm oil into their countries. They are worry that palm oil will soon get a share in their market of selling soybean oil and olive oil. Each oil has its own properties and have to eat sparingly and eat it at the right way. Example: olive oil. Many people think it is good to eat olive oil but they do not know that olive oil cannot withstand high temperature, so it is very wrong that they use olive oil to deep fry food or stir fry vege. This oil is best to be consumed raw, better still to consume the extravirgin olive oil which is fruity in taste and green in colour. And do people actually know that production of fake food is not only found in China? There are many olive oil in the market (from europe) are fake olive oil but people still buy and consume, treating it as 'the healthy oil'. Regardless what other people said, my family and I will still consume red palm oil. We do health check every year and there's nothing wrong with us, so I don't see the reason why can't we consume red palm oil? Red palm oil does contain high amount of carotenoid and Vitamin E (anti oxidant) which other oil does not have. Therefore, it is not a useless oil like someone out there claimed. It is safe for consumption, be it eating it raw as salad oil, or use it for cooking since it has withstand high temperature. If someone wants to lose weight, first thing to ask is: what are and what have you been eating all these while? It's time to change your diet , eating habit and life style!

Malaysian forests are being burned to the ground-- releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere that Indonesia now ranks 3rd behind China and US in carbon emissions-- and it is barely industrialized. The UNEP estimates that the forests of Indonesia are being cleared at a rate of 6 football fields per minute every minute of every day. To see how palm oil is produced, watch the award-winning documentary GREEN. It is available as a free download here: http://greenthefilm.com The palm oil industry is guilty of truly heinous ecological atrocities, including the systematic genocide of orangutans. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are the only place where these gentle, intelligent creatures live, and the cultivation of palm oil has directly led to the brutal deaths of thousands of individuals as the industry has expanded into previously undisturbed areas of rainforest. When the forest is cleared in order to make room for oil palm plantations, every living creature is captured or killed. Adult orangutans are shot on sight. These peaceful, sentient beings are beaten, burned, mutilated, tortured and often eaten. Babies are torn off their dying mothers so they can be sold on the black market as illegal pets to wealthy families who see them as status symbols of their own power and prestige. This has been documented time and again. If nothing is done to protect orangutans, they will be extinct in just a few years. Visit the Orangutan Outreach website to learn more: www.redapes.org