Allison-vega wrote:I have been on a mostly raw food diet mixed with occasional beans, potatoes and various other stuff for about 6 weeks now.
Please make sure you eat several servings of beans every day. Aside from being one of the most environmentally sustainable foods on Earth (way better than veggies, which are waay better than fruit which is more destructive), they're also essential for lysine and overall protein and mineral needs.
Allison-vega wrote:However I do drink almond milk in my coffee which is made with some palm oil.
Creamer is often made from palm oil, but plant milks aren't. They may contain vitamin A palmitate, which may or may not be made from palm oil, but that's only a trace ingredient and not something to worry about. The main concern should be the 99.9%, not the 0.1%
PETA gives good advice on this:
http://www.peta.org/living/food/making- ... ucts-food/
And that applies to things like palm oil too. What matters is the bulk of our use, and being sensible and sustainable in terms of personal sanity and as an example for others that looks like it's easy to follow.
Allison-vega wrote:I checked into Dr Bronners Castile soap which I use regularly. They seem to have an ethical and sustainable arrangement with farms in Ghana so I guess that's reasonable.
Sustainable palm oil is like "happy meat"; it's a myth.
You can see this thread for more:
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... f=17&t=818
Try try to minimize as much as you can. If your soap has palm in it, try to use less of it maybe, and make it last longer. That's hard to replace.
There are soaps made from coconut, which may be a bit better, and then soaps made from olive and other oils which could also be good instead (although they will frequently have palm in them too, it's important to check the ingredients).
Allison-vega wrote:I am still a bit put off by my love Oreo's having palm but then again I haven't been eating them anyway.
There are Oreo alternatives made with canola instead of palm. Much healthier too.
It's important to help the market understand that consumers want better oils in their foods.
Allison-vega wrote:I am also confused because their is evidence that palm oil is more efficient than other oils.
Palm is more efficient, but it's grown in the middle of the rain forest, and palm plantations burn down forest to create (releasing huge amounts of CO2, both from the trees and the extensive peat soil under them).
Palm is only a couple times more efficient than something like canola oil.
Here's a convenient comparison chart:
http://www.gardeningplaces.com/articles ... pared1.htm
You have to multiply the "kg/ha" parts by two or three, as mentioned below the table.
But when we're looking at oils, we can't just compare the total quantity. We might as well eat crude oil from the ground if we don't care about the nature of oil we eat. There are huge differences between the health value of these oils.
The final column, breaking down EFAs, is very meaningful in this analysis. In terms of EFAs (actual meaningful nutrition), palm has a terrible yield.
So when we talk about health value per acre, palm is bad, and in the process it's destroying our rainforests and contributing massively to global warming.
The same, of course, can be said for much fruit (like bananas), which provide little nutrition, and mostly sugar and water, and is also disproportionately destructive to the environment.