Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything―and Endangered the World

by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman

Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade: oil palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations.

James Beard Award–winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years traveling the globe, from Liberia to Indonesia, India to Brazil, reporting on the human and environmental impacts of this poorly understood plant. The result is Planet Palm, a riveting account blending history, science, politics, and food as seen through the people whose lives have been upended by this hidden ingredient. This groundbreaking work of first-rate journalism compels us to examine the connections between the choices we make at the grocery store and a planet under siege.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Food, Environment, Science, Nature, Economics

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 21, 2021

Reviews

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Пізнавальна книжка про пальмову олію в історичній перспективі з кінця 18 століття по наш час. В книжці багато про виробництво, продаж, дистрибуцію олії. Страшні криваві історії. Про рабів, голод, вбивства, знищення лісів і фауни, торгові війни і т.д. Але це не жахастик, а добротне дослідження історії цього агро бізнесу.

[Lauren D'Souza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent, comprehensive piece of reporting on one of the world's biggest problems: palm oil. Many environmentally-conscious consumers know about this evil crop, including how it has led to or been the cause of:
• massive (often illegal) deforestation in the world's most carbon-rich and biodiverse places,
• full or near extinction of hundreds of species that depend on these deforested habitats,
• huge releases of the CO2 that these high carbon stock rainforests capture and sequester, thus being a significant driver of climate change,
• eradication, exploitation, and/or displacement of indigenous peoples,
• despicable human rights violations from child labor to modern-day slavery to toxic agrochemical exposure,
• and many negative health outcomes including obesity and heart disease in countries like India and Mexico that sell processed foods loaded with the stuff.

So with all of these amazing things about palm oil easily accessible from a quick Google search, to borrow a phrase from John Oliver, why is it still a thing? Zuckerman explains why in many reasons, not least of which is the fact that our world - from Indian supermarkets to your own home - is dependent on and addicted to palm oil. You'll be hard pressed to find a home, even one of the most eco-conscious, free of the substance in one form or another, from Palmolive to L'Oreal cosmetics to Nutella to fried and packaged foods.

Zuckerman traces the history of palm oil, from when it was a nutritious and healthful Bahian food to when it entered the European commodity trade and led to many human rights abuses in its labor-intensive sourcing to when Europeans started massively clearing tropical rainforests and starting plantations of their own (only in the early 19th century). You'll note characters (really, villains) whose names are still around today: William Lever of Unilever fame, who put the stuff in his soap, and Pietro Ferrero of Nutella fame, who started using palm oil to give Nutella that creaminess that it's known for. They were not good guys in the race to own the palm oil supply chain.

Each chapter in this book dives deep into the issues I bulleted above, with Zuckerman going on-the-ground as much as possible to get firsthand accounts from workers, smallholder farmers, poachers (yes, poachers!), environmental activists, palm oil barons, government officials, etc. She travels to remote areas in these (formerly) biodiversity zones and sees the destruction that industrial-scale palm oil has wreaked on the most beautiful and sacred parts of the world. It's no secret that trying to investigate and uncover bad things about the palm oil industry puts a target on your back - palm oil is money, and there's a LOT of it in this industry - so I applaud Zuckerman's real reporting efforts, rather than just doing all her research from the desktop.

I work in the agriculture industry, and I thought I knew a decent amount about the horrors of industrial agriculture, especially for commodities like palm oil, cattle, rubber, soy, etc. that have and continue to cause massive deforestation. But this taught me so much that I didn't know in a relatively short book - including and especially all of the health and nutrition concerns related to palm oil, and how they are tied to socioeconomic disadvantage, both on a personal and geographical scale.

Although Zuckerman tries to end the book on some hopeful notes - promising partnerships and agreements, NGO watchdog groups that monitor for deforestation in almost real time, and our capacity to change what we thought would never change - you are still left with a sense of dread at the scale, intensity, difficulty to control, and most importantly, money behind this problem. I truly hope things will change, especially as the knowledge we have about this industry grows. The first step, at least, is consumer awareness.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley!

[Patrick Pilz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Planet Palm is one of those books which rips an important ingredient of our food and energy supply. It does a pretty good job describing the challenges that come with the significant increase of the supply side, including indentured labor (without using that term) or mono culture and deforestation. It is one of those books we may have read about Cobalt mines in our electric cars, shrimp sourcing in Bangladesh or the Amazon deforestation to satisfy our beef cravings.

While it is well written, it does not address the demand side: Why is it that we are using Palm Oil above anything else? The book describes some of the initiatives that have been taken to label palm oil and mark sustainability as we know if from other labels such as fair trade. But since it is mostly an ingredient, the packaging would not suffice to provide equal space for all questionable ingredients in products like Nutella.

It is well written, and if you are professionally active in the food supply chain, you may want to consider picking this one up. For the rest of us, it is just one of those books that makes you feel more miserable when you look at your nutrition and makes you question what is left to eat.

[Andrew]

To call this comprehensive would be wrong – I would say that Jocelyn Zuckerman belongs ot the Naomi Klein school of reportage, using pretty strong research and observational skills to report on a story of ugliness and corruption at the ragged edges of capitalism. It’s well written and persuasive, but it doesn’t scratch my particular itch – there’s a bit too much human interest and not enough hard journalism (something Madame Klein is guilty of as well, even when I admire her). But I’m immensely glad that this was written. It’s a story we all need to hear.

[Arya Harsono · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a part of my work concerns land use and forestry in Indonesia, I was hoping to enjoy this book. Instead, I could barely penetrate it to feel even remotely immersed, as if I kept getting stuck on some invisible film of oil floating on the book's body of water. It read more like a travelogue than an in-depth analysis of the global palm industry. Like, is it really necessary to highlight the prominent smoking culture in Indonesia and mention every time your interviewee was puffing on a clove cigarette? As relevant as species endangerment resulting from forest clearing for oil palm plantations is, I don't think the 10+ pages on Zuckerman's adventures in a Sumatran orangutan sanctuary really added to the discussion. It felt like it was written with an agenda rather than a compelling argument of how palm oil weaved itself into the global market. I think if you cut out all the fat, you'd be left with a generous exposition of palm oil's history that could easily set up something with more meat.

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Definitely an interesting read. Not the most upbeat of books, but a very important read for everyone. I found it a little "dry" in places, but the author did well in presenting us with a lot of facts and information to chew on. I'll admit, how prevalent the use of palm oil actually is surprised me.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

[Daniel Bratell · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I started the book, I thought I would learn a lot that would make me deeply anti palm oil, but despite the author’s intentions, I think I’m less concerned now than when I started. If that is a problem, then this book is a failure.

This book has the ambition to be the definite guide to the history and current state of palm oil production and use, including its financial, political and environmental repercussions, direct or indirect. After a lengthy introduction (way too lengthy), it starts with the palm oil industry in the 1800s, where European, primarily British, traders source oil from west Africa to grease the industrial revolution. Using it for tinning, or lubrication, or soap making.

Palm oil was one of the drivers of African colonialism as ruthless businessmen used deceit and physical power to control the trade. When the local people put up resistance, the trade was declared critical to the British Empire and the businessmen got the backing of the state. Soon Nigeria was a British colony, basically founded by the palm oil titan George Goldie.

As demand in Europe increases, palm oil plantations appear all around the planet's belly. We found them with slaves in Brazil and in newly British established plantations in the East Indies.

On the demand side, we find a famous company. Founded by William Lever as a soap making company in the late 1800s, we now know them as Unilever. With a mix of palm oil and other ingredients, and with successful marketing and some diversifying, his soap making company has become a giant.

And of course United Fruit Company is there as well. We know them today as Chiquita, after being the origin of the term “Banana Republic” (an undeveloped country controlled by foreign commercial interests) made it prudent to change name.

From this part of the book we learn, not unsurprisingly, that commercial farming of palm oil has attracted a lot of greed and cruelty. Wherever there was an exploited undeveloped country, there was probably palm oil plantations.

Moving to the present, the book now tells us about everything that uses palm oil today, and it’s more or less everything. Palm oil is an oil that isn’t obviously bad for your health and it is relatively easy to farm and it has a consistency in room temperature that makes it very useful whenever you want something that is neither hard, nor pure liquid.

As you can eat it, it turns up in food, but we saw from the 1800s that it was also useful for greasing machines or producing tin cans or ropes. It is also useful for makeup because of its consistency and you can even burn it for energy.

Being this popular, the demand for palm oil has sky rocketed, and that is the problem. Countries such as Liberia, Malaysia and Indonesia have aggressively expanded their palm oil production, and they have done so in ways that are ecologically harmful as well as plain corrupt.

By burning forests and diking peat land, the habitat for countless species, including the great ape orangutan, literally disappears into thin air and the amount of carbon dioxide and methane emitted is massive, not to mention that when the forest is gone, that area will lose part of its value as a carbon sink.

This is done both when outlawed and when supported by the government. When outlawed, the whistleblowers and inspectors live dangerous lives, and in the end, once land has been cleared, it’s not easy to un-clear it.

The main message I pick up is that agriculture in developing countries is full of abuse, toxic chemicals and creating a mono-culture that kills animals and plants alike, as well as making the country unsuitable for humans. Not that palm oil is bad, but that there is a shady underbelly to the palm oil industry which is given the whole industry a deservedly bad rep.

There is also a part about health where the author more or less claims that the obesity epidemic is caused by palm oil intake. I say “more or less”, because mostly the author hints or uses quotes from other people with questionable credentials ("dietician"), trying to make the reader think that correlation implies causation. While there is a connection, I think the author fails to show the causation. Palm oil, as all oils, is rich in calories. It is also a saturated fat which has been linked to certain diseases, but that doesn’t cause obesity. Instead it seems to me as if palm oil just happened to be the cheapest edible oil and thus became the oil used in fast food and snacks. Any other oil would have created as fat people.

Not that there isn’t problems with food production and consumption in countries such as India. The author mentions how hard it can be to know how many calories your food contains or what ingredients it contains. That makes it possible to end up with a very unbalanced diet without being aware of it. Also, palm oil is cheap, so food where the calories come from palm oil is cheaper than food that doesn’t use oils or uses other oils. Customers that want as much energy as possible per money will inevitable buy food with palm oil in it.

There was one thing I was missing from the book and that was looking forward or presenting action points. It wasn’t until the epilogue that the book moved to the future, but then the action points were not that impressive. Put pressure on investors, producers and consumers to only accept sustainably produced palm oil. That sound good, but we know that more often than not, the unsustainable producers will remain, but they will work through proxies and middle men. As long as countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia believe that their palm oil plantations is more important than the planet, they will remain.

For me it seems palm oil is mostly a victim to its own success. It makes people want to grow more of it and ruins forests to do so, and it means that lots of people eat it, and if they get fat, it’s partly because they ate so much palm oil. If there was not palm oil, there would be another plant, maybe soy or something else, that would drive forest destruction and people fattening.

I’m giving this book 2 stars because it’s, as GoodReads defines 2 stars, “ok”. It has too much hearsay and too little hard facts, and is a bit too verbose, for it to be “good”. Still I learned a fair bit and I feel like I now understand the controversy around palm oil much better.

My takeaway is that we need more diversity in food production and intake to avoid massive mono-cultural areas or unhealthy diets, though I am a bit afraid that more diversity will actually require more land area and hasten the killing of species and make it harder to push against climate change.

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jocelyn takes you on a history and adventures journey. Starting with land grabbing and the history of the Palm Oil trade. You can really see how much research and travel that is behind a book like this.
Palm Oil is literary in everything today, from food to shampoo and creating deforestation and biodiversity loss in its expansion. I highly recommend everyone to read this book and raise awareness about Palm Oil.
On my podcast Inside Ideas, I talked with Jocelyn about the book. You can find episode 128 here:
https://youtu.be/jHLaO6RLOgU

Or check out any of the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/how-pal...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/jocel...

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye Opening, Yet Problematic Itself. This is a well documented work - roughly 30% of the text was bibliography, even if much of it wasn't actually referenced in the text of the advance reader copy I read. (Perhaps that will be corrected before actual publication, so if you're reading a fully published version circa June 2021 or later, please comment and let me know. :D) It does a tremendous job of showing the development of palm oil from regional subsistence level agriculture to today's modern arguably Big Palm level industry, and how it spread from regional staple to in seemingly every home in the "developed" world, at minimum. It is here that the book is truly eye opening, and truly shows some areas that perhaps still need some work.

HOWEVER, the book also often lauds communists and eco-terrorists, among other less than savory characters, for the "efforts" to "combat" this scourge - and this is something that is both pervasive throughout the text and a bit heavy handed, particularly when praising a team of Greenpeace pirates who tried to illegally board a cargo ship a few years ago.

Still, even with the aforementioned pervasive praise of people who arguably truly shouldn't be, the fact that the text does such a solid job of explaining the various issues and histories at hand alone merits its consideration. Recommended.

[Anjana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book that offers solutions to an existing problem. If that is something that one might expect going into this, they will be disappointed. It was an offhand comment at a cousin's place a few years ago that had me keeping an ear on the ground for Palm oil and its pervasive presence in everything that we consume (processed things) - it was one of those numerous things that I was completely unaware of before that point. I, therefore, picked this up because it seemed to promise a history of things that came to be as convoluted as they are now. This is definitely something that it delivered for me.
I have since recommended this to people with even the slight tendency to read books of this ilk. I guess, with my review and this post, I am trying to do just that with a broader audience.
The author addresses the roots of the palm oil trade, from when it was once seen as an inferior item being used by people less 'civilized' to the role it now plays all over the world. It was only through hints I saw online and read about that I had previously abandoned my otherwise favourite Nutella and moved on to making my own hazelnut spread when I felt like it. I did not encounter a chapter on Nutella but did find the basis for where the news stemmed from.
The author did a great job addressing the position of countries reliant on this trade on the world order totem pole and what it would mean for them to 'handle' things and set the balance right. It is a book long in the making, with the author's personal travels to central locations to the narrative over many years being described to hold the history together.
It was slow in parts but shocked me and informed me in equal measure. It is not surprising since the two emotions seem to be going hand in hand whenever I pick up a book like this. The numbers are devastating, and even the sustainable palm efforts are addressed in the book.
I cannot say much more about this because it is a collection of facts, and I think these are some of those facts that everyone should know so that they make an informed decision about their purchases/consumption. I must admit I liked the way the information was laid out to signify the perplexing situation the hardworking workers at the plantation find themselves in. There is no easy fix, but I sincerely hope the people working on this might come up with even a half-decent one!
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience of the book and my previous interest in the topic discussed.

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In 2020, Global Witness found that 212 land and environmental defenders were reported killed in 2019, an average of more than 4 a week. The agriculture sector, specifically the palm oil interests within it, ranked second only to mining as the deadliest focus for activists."

Okay, now that I've finally dusted the shrapnel from this explosive journalistic masterpiece off my mind, I reckon it's high time for a review. Saddle up, my brethren book nerds!

First, the above quote alone should be enough to draw interest in the subject matter... why is it so dangerous to fight palm oil? Why are the Girl Scouts being targeted in the fight against palm oil?

Answer to first question: read the book. Palm oil special interests and the history that has led to the supremacy of those interests is as dark, wicked, and murky as it gets.
Answer to second question: Girl Scouts (like almost every other food producer in the world) uses palm oil in some of its cookie recipes, BUT unlike most industries in the world, Girl Scouts' guiding principles center on environmental protection and justice. So, sprung from its own loin are a grade of new age child activists, unafraid to go after the mothership and fight the use of palm oil in Samoas and Tagalongs. God, I love the Girl Scouts. :')

Warning: do not enter this reading experience passively or you will miss *a lot.* In a rapid fire and heavily researched fashion, Zuckerman divides the book into a conglomeration of sections that each tackle a different aspect of the palm oil crisis. She discusses the historical roots* of palm oil farming/trading, the mass habitat and species loss incurred, the strain on the healthcare system (let's replace locally sourced foods with mass produced/oil packed junk food, what could go wrong?), the refugee crises that developed in direct correlation with palm oil, the subhuman working conditions/wages that indigenous people are subjected to on oil palm plantations, the misinformation campaigns meant to uphold palm oil profits, the poaching that results from habitat loss (let's just blame the locals who no longer have any way to grow food or make money INSTEAD OF the agriculture industry leaders who created the problem!), and just generally the absolute destruction that the use of palm oil is raining upon our planet, local cultures, species, and health.

The most interesting aspect of this book (though it is difficult to choose one...okay I'll choose two) to me, was the information on poaching (zoos love to talk about how tigers, elephants, etc. are being "poached to extinction," but don't/won't talk about the reasons behind the poaching or the narrowing proximity between animals and humans.) I have a completely different outlook on poaching now... I mean, still f*ck you if you kill animals to make a living, but now I understand why. I was also similarly blown away by the fantastic chapter on oil palm plantation workers, working conditions, wages, and attempts at unionizing.

Zuckerman did some phenomenal journalistic work here, gaining interviews with seemingly unreachable characters like actual poachers, oil palm workers, activists (there are basically oil palm FBIs in some countries who try to track oil's whereabouts and catch illegal smugglers/growers), orangutan scientists (I wish the orangutans were scientists...but I'm talking about the humans who study them), and more.

All around? Impressive as hell. I dare you to read this book and emerge with the same mindset on the environment, refugees, activism, poaching, and PALM OIL (satan's mucus) that you entered the book with.

STAR STAR STAR STAR STAR (and one more for good measure) STAR

*This includes the docking of European ships on African/Latin lands, the *ongoing* enslavement of rural people and the crushing of their traditions/communities, the white supremacy theories that emboldened these profiteers, and the creation of several large agriculture industry leaders who stood at the forefront of the initial palm oil trade and now use green marketing despite the continued use of palm oil. Anyways... there's so much more. This was such an intense history lesson, but damn... sometimes books change your perspective and understanding of the world. This is one of those books.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a little depressing but also very informative. A good reminder of why consumers need to opt for palm oil-free products on store shelves and why we have to stop voting politicians into office that don't believe the science behind climate change. The insights the author offered in her epilogue, written during the Covid-19 pandemic was my favourite part of the book. I found that up until then there hadn't been much emotion infused in the chapters. Overall I found it to be a little dry but I still think it's an important read for anyone wanting to learn about the environmental destruction taking place in some very important ecological regions on earth.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a pretty messed up story but so are many that investigate big business. The book covers a wide variety of issues, which is interesting, yet dissatisfying because it lacks a red thread. It is also a very heavy read with all the numbers and dates, which in my opinion are not necessary. I also felt that she went off topic too often.
I would recommend it to anyone wondering about what is wrong with palm oil, as I have never seen a more comprehensive answer, and to anyone interested in globalisation issues more generally

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

However bad I knew Palm Oil was going into this it is much much worse. This book is a steady guide through the history and the industry today. Heartbreaking and infuriating.

[Corvus]

DNF. Important topic and not badly written. Just personally got bored with it as an audiobook. May read a hard copy another time.

[Daniel]

A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!

[Susie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an eye opener of a book, I knew some bits about palm oil, but this blew my mind.

A must read.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

[Sam Horowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing and important. We really need to put pressure on corporations and govs to slow production of palm oil ASAP.

[Ula Tardigrade · Rating 4 out of 5]

How is it possible that in 21. century there is a commodity that is so harmful and yet so ubiquitous? Palm oil is destructive to the natural environment (mostly peat swamps and rain forests and their biodiversity), to the people who produce it (often as virtual slaves, breathing and touching poisonous chemicals) and live nearby (losing their homes and livelihoods), and finally to the consumers (who often unknowingly ingest it in copious amounts, detrimental to their health). Who benefits? A handful of unscrupulous businessmen and corrupt officials.

It is a pretty well written and interesting, but above all - important book. It investigates all of this and more, providing detailed and colorful picture of the oil palm business from colonial history to the present day, and revealing many ugly truths that we, global consumers, don't like to think about.

Regarding the critics, I agree that the problem with “eco-colonialism” is real - I think that the expectations of the West, where all old forests were cleared long ago and many native species were led to extinction, towards the developing countries are often hypocritical and unfair, as the author acknowledged in the epilogue. Nonetheless, it is true that something has to be done for the sake of both local communities and the global environment. I am not sure activism is a proper solution but it surely helps to build awareness.

Thanks to the publisher, The New Press, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I learned from this book: Palm Oil is in everything because it is cheap. It is cheap because it grows in climates around the equator that coincide with countries that have been and continue to be exploited by corporations since colonialism. The land has mostly been taken illegally or via corruption (i.e. paying for corrupt officials to get office who then find a way to give the land to corporations or otherwise maintain their ownership of it) from local farmers and communities, which then have no source of food or livelihood other than to work for these agriculture corporations. The laborers, if paid (i.e. aren't victims of human trafficking), are paid little and poisoned by unsafe pesticides and other reprehensible business practices. Unions are busted and members are killed. Reporters reporting on the illegal and unethical practices of palm oil firms are jailed and at least one died in jail. The companies make it seem like palm oil is a choice of industry in Malaysia and Indonesia. It is not. It has been engineered to remove other options. Locals are given money to illegally burn rainforest and peat forest, which are vital to global climate control and ecosystems and for many communities to hunt and to feed themselves (since palm oil plantations remove forest habitat for game and pollute rivers killing the fish from their toxic business practices).

It is probably one of the most destructive industries, and it gets away with it by exploiting people in countries like Guatemala, Malaysia, and Indonesia and backing corrupt officials that dox, murder and suppress the local unionizers, activists and watchdogs.

The book, unfortunately, doesn't connect all the dots so nicely. It is a comprehensive piece of reporting. Also, since another reporter mysteriously died in jail for exposing some of these practices, the reporting is also dangerous and brave. So, I highly recommend the book, but I caution the reader to be a bit patient and ready to do some work to see how it all fits together.

Solutions that I came away with:
1. Tell everyone I know about this
Avoid Palm Oil products as much as possible by reading labels and cooking your own food especially baked or fried. It's in products such as cookies, shampoo, biofuel - it's even in baking mixes sometimes not labeled as a replacement for creamer.
2. Donate to the WWF, Eyes on the Forest (EOF), Human Rights Watch and similar organizations
3. Do not believe the way these corporations scapegoat locals and claim anti-palm is an "ecocolonialism". The industry is highly exploitative and destructive to local communities and locals that don't fall in line or who try to fight for their rights are killed and harrased by these corporations. There is an organized campaign to make it seem like palm oil is necessary for these economies. It isn't. It is harmful, but a few fat cats at the top make it the power house it is.
4. Write letters to representatives about legislation to restrict the use of these oils and these business practices. No company should be allowed to steal land and force labor.
5. Write letters to corporations like PepsiCo and Unilever to ensure they stop using palm and sourcing from comoanies with these practices.
6. Volunteer with organizations like the one listed to donate above.

[Marc Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jocelyn takes you on a history and adventures journey. Starting with land grabbing and the history of the Palm Oil trade. You can really see how much research and travel that is behind a book like this.
Palm Oil is literary in everything today, from food to shampoo and creating deforestation and biodiversity loss in its expansion. I highly recommend everyone to read this book and raise awareness about Palm Oil.
On my podcast Inside Ideas, I talked with Jocelyn about the book. You can find episode 128 here:
https://youtu.be/jHLaO6RLOgU

Or check out any of the links below:
https://www.innovatorsmag.com/how-pal...
https://medium.com/inside-ideas/jocel...

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

An incredibly important topic, just didn't think the book was well executed. For the uninformed on palm oil, this would be a great comprehensive look at the history of the industry. For someone reasonably informed, there isn't much new here. There were some interviews with current workers on plantations and some current observations but a majority is just rehashed previously published information put into book form.

Perhaps I was expecting a deep dive into the current companies that purchase palm oil, like an expose. Likely my fault for expecting more than what the book was intended to be; a history with some current anecdotes.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's see - what's in your toothpaste, your shampoo, conditioner and soap, the non-dairy creamer you put in this morning's coffee, the chocolates that provide a mid-day treat, the icing on your birthday cake, the bread on the sides of your lunchtime sandwich along with the biodiesel that fills your gas tank? Palm oil and/or palm kernel oil.

This is yet another ugly story that arises from our consumer culture. Many may be aware of that palm oil and palm kernel oil is bad for their health due to their saturated fat levels (50% and 90% respectively) but do we really know where this product that replaced trans fat in many foods really comes from?

Zuckerman traveled across the world to investigate not only how palm oil has contributed to the world's health problems of obesity and high cholesterol but also inflicted damage on the environment. Colonial imperialism of the last centuries had shifted into corporate exploitation. The workers - from Honduras and Brazil to Liberia to Malaysia and Indonesia are forced to work extensive hours/days for horrifying low pay in dangerous conditions and using toxic chemicals with no ability to remove them in a timely manner. Predators and poisonous snakes are driven out of their habitat by the burning of tropical forests - which has not only in driving several species into extinction or near-extinction but poured tons of carbon into the atmosphere where it adds to the climatic shift.

Palm oil is even a biofuel - 31% in 2017 was derived from palm oil. Zuckerman starts finishing up her tale with a positive note since one company has managed to develop a modified yeast that is nourished from the leftovers of corn destined for ethanol production (the cobs, stalks, leaves, etc.) and produces a biodiesel similar to that from palm oil. Meanwhile, another company connected to the first is planning on replacing all palm oil in skin and hair care products with a yeast manufactured variety.

Seriously, once you've read about palm oil, you'll never look at just about any product that can be bought from the local grocery store again in the same way. You'll look at labelling with a more discerning eye - edible vegetable oil is palm oil.

2021-142

[Pulkit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book which aggregates the growth of palm fruit across three major areas (South East Asia - Malaysia/ Indonesia), East Africa (Liberia, Congo) and Latin America (Brazil, countries in middle America). India is the biggest importer of palm which intrigued my interest to read this. The oil is very cheap and perfect for frying foods which Indians love.

Palm oil constitutes close to 5 percent of GDP of Malaysia which entails how big the palm oil industry is.
The book covers the origins of uniliver which started with owning palm oil cultivations in Congo and how today palm oil is cultivated. The book focuses on overgrowth of palm which has taken over forests and peats in South East Asia leading to challenges for local biodiversity like orangutans and the people who now have to toil in fields to help sell palm rather than produce nutritious food on the fields (which are now just controlled by few oligopolies who treat the farmers very badly).

The book also focuses on the use of biofuels - is it renewable if forests are being cut to farm for the palm.

Good read if somebody's trying to understand the palm oil as a commodity.

[Hasta Fu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man stands before a pile of oil palm fresh fruit bunches in the haze of smoke and fire near Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan capital of Palangkaraya. Was this because of the land clearing for oil palm plantation? Do the forests in Europe or North America never been cleared?

When a man stands before a pile of soybean in the haze of smoke and fire near North Dakota or Illinois, what would you say? When a man stands before a pile of rapeseed in the haze of smoke and fire in Canada or France or Ukraine, what would you say?

What caused the climate change that makes Southeast Asia dry, and caused forest fire and big haze in Kalimantan? We are too small to know some longer effect that the climate brings to us. But opening up jobs in our country Indonesia looks like a mandatory things to do. What should Europeans and North Americans do to stop endangering our rainforests apart from pointing fingers and forbidding everything?

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening investigative piece about the ingredient you didn’t even know you ingested ALL THE TIME. The awareness this book brings to what’s in the pantry and on the table is not for the feint of heart (you will want to make immediate changes) but also somewhat necessary. I appreciate that in the epilogue the author provides opportunities for real world changes to forestall the devastation and disaster palm oil has become. It’s only fascinating now to consider why this isn’t more of a prevalent issue in our cultural conversations?

I liked the author’s balance of personal story with investigative journalistic integrity and found it really compelling.

Again, can be a bit of a dry read because #science but also is really crucial to understanding what we consume, and how it affects the world far beyond is.

[Leonard Eichel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s hidden in a lot of the foods we consume daily. It’s responsable for deforestation, forced/slave labour practices, a reduction in biodiversity, an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and is at the root of a looming global health crisis. It’s Palm Oil.

Zuckerman’s book is a mix of historical adventure around how this product came to dominate colonial empires, and reveals how, inexorably, it has driven countries to rely entirely on its output for their economic survival, often to the detriment of the environment that is supposed to sustain the crop.

Zuckerman leaves us with some hope, as the dogged and relentless efforts of activists, NGOs and everyday citizens are starting to turn the nightly palm oil industry around for the better, and how advances in modern science could lead to a world where we simply don’t need this oil any longer.

[Thomas Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this book three and half stars. Did you know that palm oil is in many of the products we eat and use. It is in roughly half of all products in a grocery store. It makes up one third of all vegetable oil consumed in the world. It is in toothpaste, soap, shampoo, makeup snack foods and also has many uses in the industrial arena it is even in animal feed. Its use has exploded . As of last year worldwide consumption has amounted to twenty pounds for every person around the world and this stuff is not good for you. This book is a very detailed history of the cultivation of palm plantations in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. Countries that have few resources who have government or corporations come in buy land dirt cheap destroy the environment especially for those people who live there and try to survive. The use of slave labor or exploited workers who are paid poor wages and exposed to dangerous working conditions. This a very informative read. Thank you to Edelweiss and Ingram Publisher for an ARC for a fair and honest review.

[Sudhanshu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive coverage of the palm oil industry.

A whopping 50% of grocery store products contain palm oil: chips, chocolate, cosmetics, cheese, cakes (crazy alliteration w/ the c's! the meme endures) - you name it.

Indonesia and Malaysia produce about 84% of this, I'd say, miracle ingredient. Palm oil has a very high smoke point, makes products shelf-stable, and is far cheaper than any other fat. Selfishly, I'm a fan that the export of palm oil makes the Indonesian Rupiah stronger (currency weakening weakens my mood😑).

I'm sympathetic to the environmental and labor arguments made in this book. However, realistically, there's no way the dominance of palm oil is fading away any time soon.

[David Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written reportage about the history and current status of palm oil and palm kernalate oil production in the tropical parts of the world. Because of its descriptions of the vast deforestation and the corruption involved in palm oil production in biodiversity hotspots, the book is extremely depressing. Use of the oil has become so ubiquitous, it's difficult to imagine how individuals could have an impact on reducing the attendant destruction of the tropical resources and human communities--avoiding palm oil would be like stopping breathing air or drinking water (this is not hyperbole).