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The Food Programme: Should I boycott palm oil?

Should I boycott palm oil?

BBC Radio 4 - The Food Programme, Should I boycott palm oil?

Sheila Dillon asks whether we should avoid buying foods containing palm oil.

In its processed form it doesn't taste of anything, but palm oil is in approximately half the products sold in UK supermarkets. Sheila Dillon asks if we should support palm oil.

You will have heard of palm oil... but do you really know why? Possibly the things that come to mind are orangutans, deforestation. Perhaps you know that most of it is grown in Malaysia and Indonesia? Maybe you were aware of the frozen food specialist Iceland's very public decision to avoid using it in it’s own brand products?

In this programme Sheila Dillon delves into the complicated world of palm oil. She hears how the fat made from the fruit of the oil palm has become the world's most used vegetable oil. She speaks to environmentalists, and food producers about the environmental and social impacts the growth of the industry is having worldwide. And hears why avoiding palm oil completely might not be the simple solution that it sounds. 

We're making this programme, because so many of you have written to us asking whether you should avoid palm oil, so we help to shed some light.

Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced by Clare Salisbury

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