thelma magazine's blog

We’ve got some bad news! The Australian Senate Community Affairs Legislative Committee has rejected the call for the mandatory labelling of palm oil on food products.

This sucks. 

Palm oil isn’t labelled on food or products at the moment, even though it’s in almost half the products in supermarkets. It can be labelled as vegetable oil - which makes it sound a lot healthier that it is - it actually has similar fatty properties to butter! There are also reports of people who have palm oil allergies who can’t chose appropriate foods because it’s not labelled, Danger Will Robinson!

Palm oil an edible oil that is derived from the fruit of the oil palm tree. 

The way Palm oil is collected can have negative impacts the environment. These include devastating destruction of forests (it’s estimated an area the size of 300 soccer fields is cleared every hour). It’s also reported that he clearing and burning results in the deaths of endangered species such as the Orangutan and the Sumatran Tiger, and air pollution from burning forests and peatlands. While it’s rumoured Palm oil farming helps locals, there are reports it also has many social effects on the people who live and work in the areas where it is produced these include a massive number of human rights violations. 

Here are some facts from Zoos Victoria’s ‘Don’t Palm Us Off’ campaign website:

We share 97% of our DNA with Orang-utans. You could say they are our wild cousins.

Palm Oil typically costs the lives of up to 50 Orang-utans each week.

Over 85% of the worlds palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia.

In SE Asia alone, the equivalent of 300 football fields are deforested every hour for palm oil production.

Do you think consumers have the right to know when products they’re buying have Palm Oil in them? You can help put pressure on the Australian Government to make sure manufacturers label palm oil ingredients on all products available for sale in Australia.

Contact your Federal MP and let them know that you want Palm Oil ingredients labelled in Australia.

Don’t know who your MP is? Here, We’ll help you out! We’ve found this list of all the Members of Parliament. All you have to do is scroll down to find which one represents your ‘hood. [click here]

Get on board!