The lobby of Asian behemoths that rob land and ravage tropical forests to produce palm fat (1) has allied itself not only with the ’10 big sisters’ (2) of the greedy global, monopolistic ‘food industry’ but also-what we regret most-with some major Italian food industries. Palm is bad for the health of consumers, and even worse for the health of recalcitrant industries.
Italian food industries should have immediately disentangled themselves from the‘pactum sceleris‘ of organizations with which they have nothing to do, and instead squared off on the historic glory of their brands founded on the Value of raw materials, products, and labor in Italy. Doing the right thing-that is, replacing palm with fats that are more sustainable and healthy, as well as consistent with both our agricultural production and food traditions-is within reach, you just have to want it (3).
Instead, the larger ones, blinded by the arrogance of the cyclops on the brink of the precipice, insist on investing huge sums to forage disinformation campaigns and pundits sensitive to their money god (4). They insinuate that palm might even be good for your health (5), they ‘throw it around’ deluding themselves that the market, after a transient instability, will resume accepting their massive use of this bloody and disgusting fat. But they have lost sight of the fundamental fact, the independent variable in the market, the consumAtors. Let’s see why.
PALM TREE INFLAMES THE CELLS OF THE BODY
Medical research emphasizes how palmitic acid plays a proinflammatory role on cell membranes (6). It induces atherosclerosis and plays a key role in metabolic changes characterized by inflammatory processes, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, with dysregulation of normal insulin metabolism. Palmitic also plays a key role in the production of necrotic factor alpha, the origin of tumors.
And it is therefore grotesque to note how some industries boast the antioxidant properties or otherwise health prerogatives (7) of minor ingredients in baked goods whose dough is based on palm, which instead oxidizes and inflames!
PALM GREASES THE LIVER
Ingestion of palmitic acid is then followed by has then some hepatic changes, starting with steatosis-so-called ‘fatty liver syndrome’-which is quite rare in individuals not exposed to alcohol (and palm). Liver fat accumulation in turn stimulates the production of certain cytokines at the center of inflammatory and oxidative processes that can lead-in the long term-to various noncommunicable diseases, fromdiabetes to cardiovascular disease.
PALM IS THE CAUSE OF SERIOUS DISEASES
Various researches show how inflammatory processes, in addition to triggering the ‘Non-Communicable Diseases’ mentioned above (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity) are themselves a direct cause of brain and neurological suffering (7), as moreover already widely shown in studies on obese patients. Indeed, recall that obesity-even childhood obesity, which is dangerously on the rise-is itself a long-standing food-based inflammatory process. But only in recent years has research begun to investigate about the multiple and long-term effects of certain risk factors. As indeed is evident expecting that our body-though composed of different organs and functions-remains a whole.
‘CONSUMERS’ REACT
ConsumerActor 2.0 has literally ‘busted the balls’ of space baloney. Just look at the evolution of criticism, which used to focus on the social cliché proposed in commercials without ever doubting the seriousness of the food industry or even the quality. From Radio Gladio’s lyric (8) on the petit-bourgeois utopia that had made the Mulino Bianco ‘brand’ take off in a ‘socially unstable’ historical period, to the satire on the gestures of its ‘Martian family’ (9) or the collections of point-premiums (10), no one would have dared to criticize a solid industry, a protagonist of the sector’s economy and employment in the territory.
Instead, the protagonist of the commercial-parody goes to the doctor today with ‘his liver in pieces because he eats too many brioche and too many ‘pastries’ (11). The travesty takes on a temporal sweep, and high triglycerides with liver degradation is followed by pancreatic degradation, then bloating and fattening beyond measure, disease. But it gets worse. ConsumAtors – more sensitive than seismographers (12) to the mishandling of the ‘palm case’ and more generally to the ‘gaps’ between words and deeds in the large industrial group’s nutrition policies – react with unprecedented violence, targeting the various product lines. Among the ‘They really do shit, it’s shit’ (13), ‘The first cookie with shit, shit milk and beans’ (14), ‘The assholes of the White Jerk, a world of shit’ (15), ‘the scone that makes shit’ (16), ‘The Scratchers still with all the shit’ (17), ‘Molino Blanco, un mondo de mierda’ (18).
The mess – indeed the ‘mess’ – is made. How to remedy this? The only option seems to be to eliminate palm within the shortest time frame from all references, before the consumerActor finally abandons the brand in favor of more careful and responsible companies. And in any case, before destroying their reputations permanently and irreparably, entrepreneurs and their senior executives would do well to press the T (Earth, Head) button on their elevators and try to step into the shoes of those who have so far fueled their ‘business’.
The consumerActor waits for truthful-and in any case, credible and consistent-answers to clear and strong questions whose characteristic metrics and vocabulary are repeated:
– ‘If there was even the remotest doubt that this ‘shit fat’ could be bad for my loved ones’ health or my own, even if it was one in a million, why the heck do you use it? How dare you, who do you think you’re dealing with, pigs?’
– ‘if, on the other hand, you are so sure that this ‘shit fat’ is so good for you, do you feed it every day even to YOUR children from when they wake up to when they go to sleep, in all the cookies the snacks the crackers and everywhere? (20)
– ‘and anyway, with all the good fats that have always been produced in Italy, just a few miles from YOUR factories, without robbing anyone’s land and without cutting down forests, why on earth do you have to have this ‘shit fat’ shipped to the other side of the world? And what does palm then have to do with Your traditional recipes?”
Dario Dongo
To sign our petition, double-click on the word ‘petition,’ at https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/sostenibilità/stop-all-olio-di-palma
(1) https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/news-food-times/olio-di-palma-la-tigre-malese-all-assalto
(2) http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/our-campaigns/grow
(3) https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/news-food-times/grasso-di-palma-eliminarlo-si-può-ecco-come
(6) Int J Mol Med. 2014 Dec;34(6):1706-12. doi: 10.3892/ijmm.2014.1942. Epub 2014 Sep 22.
Palmitic acid exerts pro-inflammatory effects on vascular smooth muscle cells by inducing the expression of C-reactive protein, inducible nitric oxide synthase and tumor necrosis factor-α.
Wu D1, Liu J1, Pang X1, Wang S1, Zhao J1, Zhang X1, Feng L1
(7) http://www.mulinobianco.it/mulino-verde/biscotti/segreti-di-bosco, http://www.opinionando.it/cibi/mulino-bianco/segreti-di-bosco-recensione.html, http://www.vitasnellabakery.it/ProductList/Cereali%20Integrali?p=6543&provider=%7BD193998A-4A6D-4EA5-BAA8-209357B27A09%7D,
(8) J Neurochem. 2012 Mar;120(6):1060-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-4159.2012.07660.x. Epub 2012 Feb 6.
Saturated long-chain fatty acids activate inflammatory signaling in astrocytes.
Gupta S1, Knight AG, Gupta S, Keller JN, Bruce-Keller AJ
(9) http://youtu.be/B7qoEzONeCo
(10) http://youtu.be/3Hnilc37WMk
(11) http://youtu.be/UyxQRRkqevg
(12) http://youtu.be/vDQZz9_h3Hc
(13) http://www.follecasseruola.com/linsostenibile-famiglia-del-mulino-bianco-e-i-suoi-biscotti/
(14) http://youtu.be/2i0KsY4EMKA
(15) http://youtu.be/1y9GeIHS_N8
(16) http://youtu.be/WJeorgniumw
(17) http://youtu.be/EH04LO1a60I
(18) http://youtu.be/01W-nLyjFuQ
(19) http://youtu.be/tUJl1o_B96I
(20) ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are, you liar that you are!’ One example out of all is Mrs. Hillary Clinton, who introduced organic to the White House and yet publicly supports biotech http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-endorses-gmos-white-house-meals-are-organic/5451481
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
