07 Nov A new WBA brand for the Palm Oil Free food!
Many people don’t know that our daily behaviour impacts directly on the conservation of biodiversity in our planet. Everyone of us can be a party to the destruction of the rainforest and extinction of thousands of species!
The rainforests are being destroyed at an impressive rate: about 100.000 sq kmq every year, an area equivalent to the size of Portugal!
In the last decade a decisive contribution to forest destruction arrived from the palm oil industry. In several tropical countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, ecc.) the palm oil business is causing the systematic destruction of the tropical forests, with very heavy losses of biodiversity. During some recent scientific expeditions in tropical areas the naturalists of our Association observed directly the methodical destruction of enormous areas of tropical forest, replaced by plantations of palm oil trees!
However, palm oil causes damages not only to the environment, but also to our health! Infact, it is probably the worst vegetable oil used by food industry, with a high level of saturated fats, very dangerous for our health.
It is a very bad oil for food use! In the past it was even used to cause in laboratory animals atherosclerosis, and today it is used for automotive biofuels, as well as for food!
Palm oil has a very cheap production cost, and for this reason it is the most used by the food industry, even if the World Health Organization recognized that the consumption of palm oil increases the risk of heart disease, due to its high level of saturated fats.
A lot of food industries all over the world, Italy included, use palm oil in their products, often omitting it from the ingredients, or rather declaring in the label generic indications, as: “vegetable oil”, “vegetable fats”, “non-hydrogenated vegetable oil”.
The growing sensibility of consumers towards the problem has recently induced some multinational companies to devise an expedient to avoid the problem: certifying palm oil as sustainable!
“Certified” palm oil would come from countries generically considered as most compliant with the International Conventions on human rights, environmental conservation and biodiversity. It is a pity that these countries (Malesia, Papua Nuova Guinea, Brasile, etc.) in the last decade suffered very heavy losses of biodiversity, due to destruction of their rainforest.
Really, also the lands cultivated with “certified” palm oil have been recently stolen from rainforest.
In occasion of the “Fiera GUSTO – Biennale dei sapori e dei territori 2013” in Venice at the end of october, dr. Gianfranco Caoduro, president of WBA, during a Conference named “Food: sustainability and human health” presented the first italian registered brand “PALM OIL FREE”. During the Conference, Prof. Roberto Stevanato, Director of the Master in Culture of Food and Wine of Ca’ Foscari Venezia, prof. Giorgio Conti and prof. Guido Perin, of the Sustainability Archivi of Ca’ Foscari talked about food and sustainable agriculture.
World Biodiversity Association being engaged since 2012 in a sensitization campaign on the themes of sustainability, offers the new brand PALM OIL FREE to all the Companies which responsibly don’t use palm oil in their products. The brand will be given freely by WBA to all the Companies asking for it. A free donation will be appreciated to support WBA in studying and conserving biodiversity, that has been our goal since 2004 to the present day.
For info: info@biodiversityassociation.org tel. 340 9165855