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The Snack Pack Problem: Cargill & Palm Oil
Yesterday, activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) occupied the executive offices of Cargill, the nation’s largest privately held agribusiness company. Cargill is also the nation’s largest importer of palm oil, a tropical fruit extract commonly found in thousands of consumer products, from soaps and detergents to breakfast cereals and biofuels. The protest comes on the heels of RAN’s newly released and highly damning report which documents systematic failures by Cargill to comply with international palm oil standards led by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The report also documents rainforest destruction on two plantations that Cargill owns, but has allegedly hidden from the Indonesian government and its customers. In a statement, Cargill denied the claims, saying it produces palm oil responsibly on its own plantations and is working toward sustainable production from its suppliers.
Grown on massive plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil has been associated with rainforest destruction, threatened and extinct species (including orangutans), huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions, and violations of human rights and labor laws. Its use is widespread and increasing around the world, but particularly in the U.S., where its consumption has tripled in the last five years. Cargill supplies palm oil to some of the nation’s largest food companies, including Nabisco, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Mars, Kraft, and General Mills, the last of which uses palm oil in over 100 of its products, including Cheerios and Lucky Charms. According to RAN, through their purchase of Cargill palm oil, General Mills is violating their own stated corporate social responsibility policy to “be one of the most environmentally sustainable food companies in the world.”
So, how can our food choices here make a difference thousands of miles away? When we realize how our cookies and crackers (and hundreds of other products) can be contributing to global greenhouse gases. According to RAN, worldwide, the degradation and destruction of tropical rainforests are responsible for 15 percent of all annual greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon emissions resulting from Indonesia’s rapid deforestation account for around eight percent of global emissions: more than the combined emissions from all the cars, planes, trucks, buses, and trains in the U.S. This huge carbon footprint from forest destruction has made non-industrialized Indonesia the third-largest global greenhouse gas emitter, behind only the U.S. and China.
Some good corporate actors are helping to make a difference. RAN has led a successful pledge campaign, signed by dozens of personal care product manufacturers, as well as Whole Foods Market, to call on all agribusiness companies, including Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge, to use their influence with the palm oil industry to require standards that protect rainforests. The pledge also asks companies to work with RAN to ensure that sustainable alternatives to palm oil (like coconut oil, olive oil, and rapeseed oil) are available in the marketplace. Working closely with current market leaders and palm oil producers, RAN has developed a detailed model palm oil policy that addresses weaknesses in the development and enforcement of the RSPO and incorporates the concerns of local communities, environmentalists, and development experts.
You can make a difference, too. RAN believes that bold action by Cargill to reduce the negative impacts of its palm oil operations could establish an important precedent for agribusiness throughout the world. You can start by checking labels (ingredients to look for include: “palm oil”, “palm kernel oil”, “palm fruit oil” or “palmitate”) and you can call Cargill’s CEO Gregory Page and tell him to act now to protect rainforests, communities, and the climate.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllI found the following address for Cargill, and you can e-mail them through their website. However, I didn't find a phone number -- but I will admit to having done only a quick search.
Cargill, Incorporated
PO Box 9300
Minneapolis, MN
55440-9300
United States
Boycott!
Simple as that! If you have to spend even a second reading an ingredients list then just don't buy it ... don't use it.
If there are any words contained within a 'list' of ingredients that are not readily understood or you feel a need to pick up a dictionary or need to do a search for an explanation ... put it down, step back and walk away.
If more people, enough people get behind a movement real things can happen. Remember Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant'. Great things can happen if enough people want it to happen.
Change can happen through your wallet. When, where, how and why we spend our money can determine so much ... our own personal health, our family's health, the health of our home, our pets, our communities, our environment and all the same across the country and throughout the world.
ORGANIZE!
BOYCOTT!
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE NOW!
ECONOMIC JUSTICE NOW!
SOCIAL JUSTICE NOW!
I agree with your comment. Readers, you have more power than you may realize.
Recently there was a boycott of Trader Joe's led by Greenpeace because they had no sustainable seafood policy, and sold red-listed fish. On separate occasions, I talked to four different workers at a TJ's where I occasionally shop, including the manager and the person in charge of restocking the fish (she told me she didn't know anything about a red list, or what issues Greenpeace had with TJ's). I voiced my wish that Trader Joe's would come up with a seafood policy similar to what others have done. It was simple, I didn't get shrill; just politely, firmly stated my views.
In the end, the people in charge at TJ's capitulated. The Greenpeace action was successful. For myself, this felt very good indeed. It took a bit of gumption to go beyond sending the usual emails, and to speak up repeatedly-- to make a mild nuisance of oneself. But when news came that a company had changed its ways, it was well worth it.
How else could things possibly ever change? Let's speak up, shall we?
A thought: Our goofy way of life is trashing irreplaceable treasures. Somehow humans managed to survive 100,000 years of evolution without needing palm oil in their cookies. Surely we don't need to tear down the world's tropical forests-- jewels of our heritage-- for the sake of baked goods in aluminum-foil wrappers.
I have been wondering why one of the big greens haven't enacted this before now?
I am sure it makes good PR and feels good. I hope RAN and others carry it all the way through.
I hope they demand "Organic and fair trade certification or no end to the boycott of palm oil".
"Earth Balance" Non Butter spread and its other "Balance" spreads seems to have the highest content of palm fruit (oil) of the non butter spreads on market shelves. So contact those companies. I know Earth Balance is now selling an organic spread with organic palm oil. Not sure if they are still selling a non-organic "Earth Balance" still?
I have a question: how does a company get palm oil certified organic? What is the criteria?
However, I hope that RAN won't pull a fast one like they did in the Great Bear Rainforest (BC) deal (5 million acres "protected" out of 15 million) by claiming victory and calling off the boycott after a "sellout" deal for political expediency, good PR, and new round of grant money from corporate funded foundations.
Good luck. We will be watching.
Does anyone have a recipe for a healthy vegetable oil I can make from the vegetables I grow in my own garden?
Hmm.
Flax seed oil, from flax, is very healthy, and is one of the few plant sources of omega 3 essential fats. I've never tried grow flax myself. But, here are a couple links to trying to grow it on your own:
http://www.herbcompanion.com/Gardening/Flax-Growing-and-Processing.aspx
http://www.heirloom-organics.com/guide/va/guidetogrowingflax.html
You want recipes for cooking / food?
"You want recipes for cooking / food?"
I got some but I can always use more and keep them healthy and vegetarian please. :)
Stanley1979, why do you need or want a vegetable oil? I am curious because I have been a 90% fat-free vegan for several years now and have completely eliminated added fats from my diet. I still get plenty of natural fat from nuts & nut butters, avocados, etc. I saute with vegetable stock or filtered water. I created recipes for chocolate cake and oatmeal cookies with no added fat, eggs or dairy. Health wise, why do you want vegetable oils?
I wouldn't eliminate good vegetable oils completely as they are usually less fattening and one could use that oil to make some good snacks. I think that organic vegetable oils are available but I don't know what is for real out on the market given that too many things are getting the "organic" label. I know of grass-fed butter and, as rfloh mentioned, flax seed oil. I would agree though with going more towards veganism at some point.
Stanley,
Fats are necessary. Not all fats are evil. Generally, stay away from (over) processed vegetable fats and you are fine. If you see words like partially hydrogenated, hydrogenated, interesterified, fractionated, to describe that fat, run.
Flax, or the more esoteric Chia seeds, and to a lesser extent hemp, is especially necessary for a vegetarian / vegan, since there are very few vegetable fats that contain omega 3 fatty acids.
I don't have any recipes for flax seed on computer, they're in books; but, generally, they work great in cereals, shakes / smoothies, they add a slight nutty / grassy taste. They can also be added into a mix for baking as is, to add some crunch. Ground up into flour, they can be used with various other flours / mixes for baking breads / cakes etc.
rfloh, thanks.
PLEASE tell me how breaking and entering is OK? Would you smelly hippies say it is ok to occupy a murder mill (AKA: Planned parenthood) and chain myself to a stairwell? of course, your tune would change as always...you all live by double standards. if only you hippies graduated high school and can actually work for a living. Don't you know everyone lughs at you....you are a joke.
go to hell you morons.
Who sent you in, Rush Limbaugh? Fyi, we're already in hell and thanks to the rightwingers, abortions actually went up. As for your hatred of hippies, they smell a lot better than you rightwinger brownshirt nazi-bots.
Around 90% of the global supply of palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, and this has come at a tremendous cost. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are being burned to the ground-- releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere that Indonesia now ranks only 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.
The palm oil industry is guilty of the most heinous ecological atrocities imaginable, 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, adult orangutans are typically 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: redapes.org
Orangutan Outreach
redapes.org
Reach out and save the orangutans!
Thanks for alerting us on the orangutan. Those animals are so cute to look at and nobody deserves to kill them for palm oil which isn't good for people's health anyway.