Why palm oil is in everything, and why that's bad

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[yulfahrioramdhani]

I live in Borneo, one of some parts of Indonesia where palm oil plantation is part of life for most of us

I don't want to sound exaggerated, but I feel like my people here live in total dystopia. You might think that is not true, I think even half of population of Indonesia don't even aware about such living condition. But one of the thing that most people outside of Indonesia don't know is that we're one of the first victims when a mega palm oil plantation company annually burning up millions of acres of lands in order to start a new field plantations. The very air that we breath becomes a foggy poisonous hazard in a matter of days and it could lasts up to a year. Affecting not only our health, but our life as well. Schools are closed most of the time, economy is slowing down because people can't go outside the house for very long time. When it becomes much worse, the fog will eventually managed to enter our homes. Imagine wherever you go, no matter how far you run, you can only see smoke, and breath smoke. We used mask before it was cool lol.

I do agree that our economy are heavily supported by these plantations. It's not a very wise idea to shutdown products that use palm oil product as their ingredient, because it's cheap as dirt compared to other source of plant oil and very effective in terms of land usage and yield. I'm positive in the near future we can develop a plant or source with similar traits that doesn't have such harmful effect to the environment.

The real problem IMHO is the politics that surround this god-descended product. Gluttonous corporations doing anything they can in order to maximize their profit, even if it's ruining everything but themselves. The government who should be regulating the law and the practice sometimes get involved with collusions and corruptions that happen in the internal body of the corporations, while simultaneously campaigning that we should use reliable and "good" palm oil. seriously GTFO.

I'm not begging you guys to care. I just want to give you some facts that I've witnessed or even experienced myself so that we can all aware about what's happening in the industry, therefore you can make your own judgement of what should you do regarding this product and set your very own moral compass.

[kimdk]

I was eating some soap and sure enough when i looked at the ingredient list.. there it was!

[KurtisRader]

The "You own it forever" comment about Audible audio books is incorrect. I say that as someone who has been an annual subscription member of Audible since 2003-05-08 (two decades). I recently wanted to listen to "The Martian" by Andy Weir a second time. I couldn't do so until I contacted Audible customer service. The problem was that the audio book had been re-released and the version I purchased was no longer available. The customer service person had to update my records to reflect that I had purchased the new version. So "you own it forever" is only true as long as the Audible company continues to exist and honors your purchases. This is very different from printed ("dead tree") books.

[AbdulRaheem-fkru]

I studied in a Malaysian school and some of the students did an anti-palm oil performance, which had some parents triggered. Those parents contacted one of the ministers. They and the palm oil companies they apparently threatened legal action against the school performance. Unfortunately, my school eventually kowtowed by apologizing to the palm oil companies and the ministry :(

[lameboi]

I see palm oil in a lot of foods I eat but I never had the thought of “wait palm oil is in everything”

[axiezimmah]

I think if we replace palm oil for something else it will just become a worse version of palm oil. The problem isn't the palm oil. The problem is corporate behavior and the fact that we as a society allow corporate behavior to thrive. We don't hold corporations accountable for their actions, and destructive behavior does not get priced in.

[zakki]

I was eating a bag of granola while watching this, and out of curiosity I looked at the ingredients. Yep. Palm oil.

[Miidi]

1:32 that’s Zomi which is spiced/seasoned palm oil. That’s part of what you were tasting. Typically when it’s solid, you can actually see the spices settled at the bottom of the bottle.
You can buy the plain oil without any spices/seasoning & season it to your preference when cooking.

[FreddyScouser]

"loudly declining something on moral grounds while quietly accepting something just as bad over here, except now with some smug moral superiority" is a good summary of the 21st century and twitter, isnt it

[manialaee]

I like how Adam makes videos we never asked for yet it’s the best thing ever.

[kaceynm]

This was an interesting video for me. I’m a first generation Nigerian-American and we use palm oil (the real, orange thing) all the time in our food (sourced from Ghana or Nigeria). So for me that’s what I think of when I hear palm oil. It’s flavor is really important in a lot of our dishes. But how it’s been exploited around the world and its awful reputation makes me sad.

[ronconte]

Palm oil is used because the plant produces more oil per unit of land per unit of time than almost any other oil crop. It also happens to grow well in locations where land and labor is, unfortunately, cheap. However, there is a new oil crop that theoretically can out-compete palm oil: chufa (aka tigernut). At the highest yields, it far out produces palm oil, both on a per year basis and even on a per crop basis. However, chufa oil needs further development and greater market acceptance.

[seanocansey]

As somebody from West Africa (Ghana) Palm oil is a big part of our diet, but the plants they get the oil from grow naturally, like in my Grandmother's garden. I was actually surprised because I recognise the exact brand you were holding even though I live in the UK (usually I don't see Americans have the same brands with rest of the world)

[chonkydonkyexplains]

As a Malaysian I was prepared to be pissed, since most Westerners do practice that double standard when judging products from other countries. But this was an excellent and balanced take. Well done Adam.

I’m not a fan of boycotting palm oil. As Adam mentioned it’s yield is insane - more product for less land. I fear moving to less efficient alternatives eg soybean oil would just move the deforestation elsewhere (the Amazon) and increase it overall.

But I have to agree with Adam that standards should be higher. You can believe the product is fundamentally good, but also believe it’s production is tainted and in need of proper regulation. Same way I feel about Americans and their Amazon delivery. Excellent service. Terrible production practices/working conditions.

But to be honest I don’t know how the industry will get better. It’s one of those uphill fights where seemingly easy solutions don’t always pan out the way people they will.

[Fraxxxi]

Africa Everyday recently made a video about how they produce palm oil in his local village, it was interesting how labor intensive the manual process is, and yet Babatunde said it is very integral to their local cuisine and thus worth it.

[TimoWelde]

I love that you incorporate experts on the topics you make videos about!

[AlRoderick]

This is the kind of great stuff you get when your food YouTuber came from journalism.

This is one of those things where you can only partially walk it back. The plantations are planted, so it'd be very difficult to restore the land to anything resembling a natural rainforest again, the best you could hope to do is improve the labor conditions while slowly walking it back. Alleviation of poverty worldwide also goes a long way, because a lot of people only choose the cheapest possible option because they feel strong pressure to do it, and poverty remaining anywhere is a threat to prosperity anywhere.

[AaronSmith]

I appreciate how the video ends. Life is complicated and most things can't be summed up in a tidy moral. I think a lot of the media these days has lost site of the fact that their primary job is giving us all the pertinent information so we can make informed decisions. The media's job is not to craft a nice story with a 5-point plot structure. Leave that to the fiction writers.

[PhyNTV]

Minor Detail: Notice the word "ZOMI" 1:33. It is a type of palm oil with a strong flavor and taste. It is the last to be collected from the base of the batch. It is a premier product for that. Other less quality palm oil is liquid at room temperature and is less saturated.

[loisavci]

Palm oil is awfully useful for some folks working around food allergies. I'm allergic to corn (including corn oil) and my grandson had allergy attacks from even small amounts of butter or soybean oil. Palm was the only shortening we could use.