From Denny: Thanks to one of my fellow bloggers, Stoneweaver, we have news that the huge chocolate giant, Cadbury, has finally bowed to consumer pressure about the concerns of using palm oil in its chocolate.
I quit buying their product a long time ago because of the extreme oiliness of it as the 2 point type was too small to see it was the palm oil to which I was objecting (or should I say it was my stomach that was objecting). Apparently, the reason so many other people quit buying their product was because of the association of palm tree plantations and the huge destruction of the rain forests.
The company didn't expressly place palm oil on their label but rather only marked it as vegetable oil. Remember, palm oil has a huge level of saturated fat even though it is a vegetable oil.
And the relationship to the destruction of the rain forests you ask? Turns out the palm tree plantations have taken over former rain forest land in places like Borneo and Sumatra to the tune of millions of acres. Of course, once they took over the land to produce palm oil all the former animals went homeless. At least chocolate lovers worldwide have taken a stand about this loss of habitat for our beloved animals. Sometimes, you just have to check your sweet tooth at the door as there are more important things to consider. Talk about kill your interest in a yummy chocolate bar.
Also, Greenpeace contends that 96% of palm oil produced worldwide is not certified sustainable. Well, that only leaves a mere 4% that is and Cadbury certainly isn't part of that small percentage of concerned global citizens.
Greenpeace also informs us that the demand for palm oil is rocketing at a fast pace worldwide and that's why the rush to slash and burn pristine habitats to farm the land for, you guessed it, money!
What products does palm oil go into these days? Margarine is the prime draw. (I knew there was a reason I never liked the stuff. Give me clarified real butter any day as clarifying it gets rid of the cholesterol clogging garbage.) Then chocolate, cream cheese, cosmetics and now biodiesel fuel are the reasons for the uptick in demand. Seventy percent of this palm oil ends up in our food (and we wonder why we are fat in America) and the rest goes to the increasing biofuel industry.
In the rush to keep down fossil fuel emissions globally we are creating another climate change issue by cutting down the lungs of our planet, the rain forest!
So, the next time you purchase a chocolate candy bar, borrow someone's reader glasses at a high magnification and read that tiny tiny print on the wrapper. Check for palm oil. If you find it, then the next thing you do is this: hurl the damn candy bar clear across the store and bounce it off a few walls, hoping it lands in the trashcan. Because that's all it is: trash.
Congrats and kudos go out to all the people who boycotted Cadbury chocolate and wrote news stories about this irresponsible destruction of the rain forests.
