On 7 Apr 2010 at 5:03pm Mr Change wrote:
A product which has a very poor record currently is unsustainable palm oil, this is used in hundreds of products which appear on every shelf of every supermarket in the land and we should be making an effort to stop this, vast areas of ancient wildlife rich rain forest all over the world are being destroyed to make way for palm plantations (30 square miles a day in Indonesia and Malaysia alone), this has massive effects on the local ecology and displaces indigenous communities. The problem with unsustainable palm oil is that you don't know what it's in by looking at the ingredients, it comes under ?Vegetable Oil' and currently there Is no law to enforce specific mention of palm oil or if it has been produced from a sustainable source. So the only way to know is to research the products you buy in order to understand if they contain unsustainable palm oil, Nestlé, Kraft & MacDonald's all use unsustainable palm oil in their products, and some still source their palm oil from Sinar Mas who have been highlighted by Greenpeace as illegally destroying rainforests and peatland to make way for palm plantations, Nestlé clam to have broken their ties with Sinar Mas but also state that it will take a further 5 years before they can guarantee all their products are free from unsustainable palm oil. Unilever have also, since Dec 2009 ended their contract with Sinar Mas. This a difficult subject as there is evidence that palm oil plantations do have benefits in regard to local economies and high yield production, but we should take care that we really know who is not abiding by proper standards when it comes to sourcing this product.
It's in the top three loaves ? Warburtons, Hovis, and Kingsmill ? and the bestselling margarines Flora and Clover. It's in Special K, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Mr Kipling Cakes, McVitie's Digestives and Goodfella's pizza. It's in KitKat, Galaxy, Dairy Milk and Wrigley's chewing gum. It's in Persil washing powder, Comfort fabric softener and Dove soap. It's also in plenty of famous brands that aren't in the top 100, such as Milkybar, Jordan's Country Crisp and Utterly Butterly. And it's almost certainly in thousands of supermarket own brands. Yet none of these manufacturers can prove their supply is "sustainable". (Ref: Martin Hickman, Independent)
On 7 Apr 2010 at 5:57pm Stig of the dump wrote:
But i like palms. Is there actually anything we can eat ?
On 7 Apr 2010 at 7:02pm SHS wrote:
This is really shocking - based on the published land area of Indonesia (it may already be half that due to the lobal warning), the entire country will vanish beneath a sea of palm oil in 24,743 years! Is anything sustainable? Can I eat grass??
On 7 Apr 2010 at 10:19pm Prick Stein wrote:
Mr Change, boycott life, please!
On 8 Apr 2010 at 2:04am Ed Can Do wrote:
It's tough to find products that don't use palm oil these days. There was a documentary on BBC2 recently, part of the Britain's worst food series I think, that showed how many products use it,even fair trade stuff.
Ethical shopping is all well and good but with so many products containing so much stuff from around the world, without buying everything from a local farm shop it's really hard to guarantee where all your stuff comes from.
On 8 Apr 2010 at 8:40am Get real wrote:
Mr Change, you are a total arse....unless you make all your own clothes, food, household goods, car etc etc etc ....you are a total hypocrite
On 8 Apr 2010 at 10:25am Mr Change wrote:
You people really don't like hearing the truth do you!
On 8 Apr 2010 at 11:01am Off-Message wrote:
Most of us on here don't need to worry too much by the sounds of it: with the possible exception of McV's digies we're too posh in any case to buy the downmarket brands you list.
On 8 Apr 2010 at 11:39am Lavender wrote:
Mr Change: Have you considered joining an eco forum? Not entirely sure you'll get very far on here......Now if you want to discuss one of Bill's apples blocking Her Majesty's highway......hehehehe
On 8 Apr 2010 at 11:59am Mr Change wrote:
I am sure you won't surprised to hear I already do belong to some, and I am new to this forum but I am enjoying myself, despite a few somewhat extream views.
On 8 Apr 2010 at 12:21pm Lavender wrote:
Good, glad to hear it...there are a few nutters on here, reflects the general population I guess..
I'm really into growing my own fruit and veg as much as I can in my 75ft back garden...just been potting up some seedlings and it was soooo nice, especially in the lovely sunshine...My goal is to save as much as possible...I dream of having a larger garden (say 1/2 acre) where I can really become more self-sufficient...
On 8 Apr 2010 at 1:21pm Prick Stein wrote:
I too have a lovely vegetable plot in my back garden! However due to the lack of Mediteranean style weather and the fact i don't own a field have to shop in a supermarket to buy 98% of my food! Still, every little helps 
On 8 Apr 2010 at 2:29pm Lavender wrote:
It's amazing how much you can grow in an average garden...granted I need to go to Tesco for the majority of my food.. 
On 8 Apr 2010 at 7:14pm Mr Change wrote:
Good to hear that there is good gardening practices going on, I too have been hard at it with my seed trays recently, also saw an interesting article in the Waitrose weekend magazine today which states they will switch to sustainable palm oil in all their own brand products by 2012, good to see that someone from the supermarket fraternity is listening, Unilever have also promised the same, but not until 2015.
On 8 Apr 2010 at 8:44pm Mr Change wrote:
Off Message, Sorry to have to inform you that McVities also use non-CSPO (Certified sustainable palm oil) in their biscuits!
On 9 Apr 2010 at 1:29pm Ed Can Do wrote:
It's a nice attempt by Waitrose to look like they care. There's no reason why they can't switch now though, there are already companies that import sustainable palm oil into the country and have loads of stock unsold. Also the Orangutans might well all be dead by 2011 at current deforestation rates.
I'm sure we'd all like to grow our own food but given the UK population, we'd need to turn all the farmland over to private gardens to accomodate that.
On 9 Apr 2010 at 2:47pm Mr Change wrote:
I wholeheartedly agree Ed, and let's face it all the supermarket chains could do the same, however currently Waitrose is the only one to have committed to using CSPO in all of its own brand products by 2012, so I think if the criticism should be aimed anywhere it should be at the others. I would suggest you tell Waitrose who the companies are that have unsold stock of CSPO, I was of the understanding that part of the problem currently is that little of the palm oil in general could reliably be certified as sustainable, I would be pleased to find that this is not the case, who are these companies?
On 12 Apr 2010 at 5:07am expat wrote:
Last year Cadbury increased the amount of palm oil in their chocky made here in Dunedin. The public objected and stopped buying it. Cadbury apologised and changed the recipe back. It tasted nasty too!
On 12 Apr 2010 at 8:37am Mr Change wrote:
That's what I like to hear, people power at work, it will be interesting to see if they change back since Cadbury has been brought by Kraft!
On 13 Apr 2010 at 6:42am expat wrote:
I don't think they'd risk it, knowing that their sales dropped by such a huge amount with the palm oil recipe. Probably an advantage of having such a low populated country with the right spirit!