‘Palmed Off’: Is Your Dinner Killing Orangutans? Palm Oil: The
Other Kind of Oil Spill Although it is difficult to draw a
direct relationship between the growth of palm oil and the
conversion of forests, roughly 66 percent of Indonesia’s palm
oil plantations and 87 percent of Malaysia’s plantations have
involved documented forest conversion. Palm oil plantations are
used to harvest and process palm oil, an edible plant oil
derived from the fleshy middle layer of the fruit of the oil
palm. Not unlike other vegetable oils, palm oil acts as a
cooking ingredient in both tropical cooking and the larger
commercial food industry, and may be prevalent in products
purchased by up to 75 percent of everyday Western consumers. As
of 2010, it was the most widely used and consumed edible oil in
the world, holding approximately 32 percent of the oil market.
Often listed discreetly as “vegetable oil”, palm oil is found in
some 200 international brands, including McDonald’s, Ben and
Jerry’s ice cream, Girl Scout cookies, Kent