This fortnight on Online Insights we discussed Palm Oil (it will make you gasp and stop eating Tim Tams), Sesame Street’s new site, Morning Glory (not what you think), and a wonderfully quirky site for lifting your mood. Enjoy.

Palm Oil

A selection of products from producers who have certified that they DO contain palm oil or a derivative

So many products we use day to day contain palm oil and most of that palm oil has been obtained by destroying the rainforests of Sumatra and other areas where orang-utans are clinging on for dear life. I have been working with Adelaide Zoo recently and when I heard about this I thought I was doing okay because I couldn’t recall seeing palm oil on ingredient lists for anything I bought. But in fact, for many products that use palm oil – such as well known dish washing liquids and soaps – they do not need to list palm oil, only the “active” ingredients.

There is a double bind with soaps because most producers use either palm oil or beef tallow from slaughter houses. This causes concern for vegetarians trying to live in harmony with their beliefs. For me, it would be hypocritical to object to the beef tallow base because I do eat meat and am glad that very little (if any) of the animals, whose lives we take to sustain our own, go to waste.

So, using products from animals who are already a food source is one thing. Felling trees to make dish washing liquid easy on your hands is another. At the rate things are going, we, as a human race, would have notched up another species kill within ten years or less. Goodnight orang-utans.

But it doesn’t have to end in tears. The Australian Orangutan project has a Facebook group that contains basic information about this situation and, importantly, a discussion board where members update visitors with lists of products that are FREE from palm oil. And we’re not just talking soaps, but biscuits, cosmetics, and a whole range of products use palm oil, most of it plundered from rainforests. It is as absolute disgrace that well loved household names are destroying our closest neighbours in the animal kingdom while smiling at the camera and making supermarket shelves bright and cheery. Every executive at these large soap making and food making conglomerates is living with blood on their hands and they deserve to have their homes and support systems ripped away from them to give them a taste of what they are inflicting on orang-utans, all in a vain chase for some extra lousy bucks. Continue reading →