Question: Is palm oil good or bad for the planet. (what's your opinion)? and do you try to avoid it?

Faranak Bahrami answered on 13 Mar 2019:

Ok, I’m not an expert on this but based on the things I have read and some documentaries that I have watched palm oil is bad for the planet.

So to make the palm oil, they need the fruit which is collected from the trees, so they end up using the fruits and after a few years they will cut down the trees to make space for new trees, which as you can imagine will make the rainforest kind of empty — deforestation.

These forests are habitats for many animals (orangutans, elephants, tigers, rhinos and etc.), so now these poor animals and endangered species don’t have have a place/food. I read it somewhere that in the past 16 years, 100,000 orangutans have been died due to the demand for palm oil.

When they change these rainforests to a place that they can plant the trees only for their food, can also contribute to climate change (releasing high amounts of carbon emissions into the air).

I do try to eat things with have no palm oil. I use peanut butter and almond butter which have been made without palm oil, the taste is good for me it might have a different texture but least I don’t feel bad when I’m eating it 🙂