Adopting a palm oil-free diet means voting NO to a supply chain that still causes massive fires and tropical deforestation, land robbery and slavery, including child slavery, and serious and chronic diseases. The undertaking is feasible even for those who devote little time to cooking or often eat out. Let’s see how, in a ‘palm oilfree‘ day-type, from breakfast to after dinner.
Breakfast
The typical Italian breakfast combines dairy products (milk, yogurt) with a baked good. A mix that may even reduce cardiovascular risks, according to an Italian study. The addition of protein, even just a serving of nuts, is then helpful in reaching lunchtime without an appetite crisis.
Long live homemade desserts and even simple bread. With fruit jams, citrus jams, honey. A hazelnut spread can also be fine, as long as it is palm oil-free. So as to provide nutritionally appreciable monounsaturated and/or polyunsaturated fatty acids, and not instead the saturated fats typical of unsustainable tropical fat.
Products to avoid
The products to avoid-for a healthy and sustainable ‘palm oil-free’ breakfast-are several. Some examples, in the various categories:
– snacks. Girella and Buondì Motta, all Kinder snacks (Brioss, Colazione Più, etc.) are saturated with palm. As revealed in the recent market survey we conducted to comment on the Italian Food Union’s demented campaign to denigrate homemade sweets and instead ‘recommend’ snacks from Ferrero and others,
– spreads. Nutella, the world champion of unsustainability (for palm and hazelnuts, whether Turkish or Italian ) is joined by Carrefour (with its own branded ‘Hazelnut Spreading Cream’) and LIDL (with ‘Choco Nussa’ and ‘Speculoos Cream’), TWIX and Bounty (‘Cream Spread’),
– cookies. The Kinder Ferrero line is strictly palm oil. Which is also found in Montebovi’s ‘Birillo – Stuffed with Cocoa Cream’ cookies, Misura’s ‘Low Glycemic Index with Chocolate Chips,’ Campiello’s ‘It’s the Newbie,’ and ‘Mcvitie’s Digestive Dark Chocolate.
The surprise, to those deluded in the wholesomeness of breakfast cereals and rusks, is to detect the shoddy tropical fat also in the ingredient list of:
– San Carlo brand Dutch rusks,
– Kellogg’s cereals (Extra Chocolate and Hazelnut, Krave Dark Choco) and LIDL (Crownfield Stuffed Hazelnut).
Mono and diglycerides of fatty acids
The ‘mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids,’ often found in the ingredient list of ultra-processed foods, in many cases mask the presence of the shoddy tropical fat. As one of the key players in replacing palm with quality ingredients, Massimo Ambanelli of Hi-Food, explained to GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade) at the time.
Emulsifiers ‘mono and diglycerides of fatty acids’ are used as a cheap additive to save on quality ingredients such as eggs. Their presence is therefore a good reason to leave the product on the shelf. Then when the label boasts the absence of palm oil-such as Mulino Bianco’s‘Tegolino‘ snack-we are faced with emulsifiers derived from animal fats, including pigs, which are incompatible with kosher and halal diets, among other things.
Breakfast bar, without palm oil
Greater care to avoid the shoddy tropical fat is required at the bar and bakery. Where it is still difficult to find in plain sight-as it should be-the ingredient list of individual products displayed for sale in bulk.
The ingredients of brioche or ‘croissants,’ pastries, and other baked goods often include the words ‘vegetable margarine(s),’ which unfortunately is still followed by ‘palm oil’ or ‘palm fat.’ Better to ask for an alternative, to stigmatize the poor quality of the products, and rather choose a quality packaged snack (e.g., a bar with dried fruit, palm-free ça va sans dir).
Snacks and refreshments
Fresh and dried fruits, yogurt–possibly organic, to strengthen the immune system–are ideal for snacks and snacks. Also good on bread with extra virgin olive oil or focaccia, typical snacks of the Mediterranean diet.
Beware instead of snacks, the category of choice for junk food. Salt and/or excess sugar and saturated fat are the rule. And it is common is the presence of palm oil as such, in ‘vegetable margarine’ i.e. hidden behind the label ‘mono and diglycerides of fatty acids’.
A few examples:
– Schär gluten-free crackers and Doria Doriano’s Reduced Salt Content crackers,
– Crik Crok Fries (‘The Original Fries‘),
– Forno Lodi Breadsticks Type 0 Sesame.
Lunch and dinner
There is no shortage of palm oil-free alternatives for main meals. In the home, tropical fat enters through some categories of industrial foods. Ready-made risottos and stock cubes, as we saw in the focus on Knorr. Pizza bases, piadinas, puff pastries (Carrefour’s brisèe dough, Lidl’s Chef Select & You and Buitoni’s, including gluten-free versions, contain them, for example). The ready meals, sweet and savory pies, and soft sandwiches.
Outside the home, in addition to checking the ingredient list of ready-to-eat foods (including sandwiches), it is good to ask what oil is used for frying. Good peanut, grape seed, sunflower (even better if ‘high oleic’). In case the fried food is instead made with palm-and its unnecessary saturated fats-better to choose a different dish. And recommend that the restaurateur change the recipe.
Palm oil-free, when?
We consumAtors are the only ones who can force a turnaround so that palm oil, the paradigm of exploitative globalization, is put out of business for good. Where its consumption is still significant-even in the food industry, fast-food and catering-as was also found in a recent WWF report (2020).
Let us eliminate palm oil from our diet to distance ourselves from the robbery ofland (land grabbing) and ancestral domains from indigenous communities, deforestation and arson, exploitation of child labor, extinction of rare animals such as orangutans, and the climate emergency. We take care even so of our own and everyone’s health, as well as that of animals and the planet.
Good resolutions
For more insights on good resolutions for better living, please refer to our ebook Covid-19, the ABCs. Volume III – Planet (also translated into English).
Dario Dongo and Marta Strinati
Recommended viewing: Leonardo Di Caprio (2017), Before the Flood, National Geographic. https://www.beforetheflood.com
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
