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The Race To Replace Palm Oil Confirms Palm Oil’s Importance to Human Health
- Investors are pouring millions of dollars into start-ups which promise a lab-grown alternative to palm oil.
- Lured by scientists who prey upon the associated deforestation in natural palm oil production, numerous start ups have been endowed with generous funding to replicate palm oil in a laboratory setting.
- What is palm oil? Why is there so much interest in reproducing a laboratory version of it?
According to Our World in Data, 8.6% of the global land use for vegetable oil crops is used for growing palm oil. This pales in comparison to soy plantations which use 39% of the global land use for vegetable oil crops. Palm oil cultivation worldwide is less than rape and mustard combined for 12% global land use or groundnuts at 9%.
Yet palm oil has managed to take over 36% of global vegetable oil production due to its incredibly high yield per acre, according to the data.
This qualifies palm oil as the sustainable vegetable oil crop for the anticipated 10 billion humans by 2050. Its super high yield comes with a natural characteristic where basic crude palm oil, can be broken down into fractions and derivatives to meet wide ranging commercial demands. From an affordable cooking oil for developing countries to age-fighting health care and silky textured fillings for desserts in rich countries, this natural character of palm oil has managed to make its way into the lives of consumers globally.
Yet palm oil is vilified in derogatory terms like “cheap, unhealthy, unsustainable” even though recent science shows differently. This may well explain why scientists are trying so hard to replicate this natural vegetable oil.
Ingrained Misinformation Touted By “White Savior Scientists”
As a natural product, the palm oil tree has been commercially planted across tropical countries with Indonesia and Malaysia accounting for most of the global trade. The industry is accused of being a threat to humanity because the forests in palm oil producing countries is purportedly, important to the survival of all humans on earth. |
Scientists who are supposed to come up with sustainable solutions for the planet have noted the popularity of “saving tropical forests” and adopted a white savior approach to selling their work. Their underlying claim is that lab grown palm oil can be produced without deforestation.
Earlier examples include the University of Bath, UK, which sold a microwave idea to produce palm oil from wastes in 2016. Researchers at Australia’s CSIRO were reported to be selling a GMO tobacco leaf replacement for palm oil. The silliest science came from the University of Guelph, Canada which sold their laboratory experiment as “good for human and planetary health” by turning vegetable oils in cottonseed and groundnuts, into palm oil.
The failure of these lab experiments to deliver a palm oil alternative has not stopped scientists from developing new ideas for funding as their laboratory experiments are spun into private enterprises like Clean Food Group which sold the idea that:
Once scaled, the company says its technology has the potential to displace palm oil by bringing a range of more sustainable products to the market. Its yeast-based alternative is said to be bio-equivalent to palm oil in terms of its nutritional and fatty acid makeup and performs in the same way that palm oil does.
Not much is known about Clean Food Group beyond the fact that the private enterprise, created by Professor Chris Chuck of Bath University has attracted some new money. Professor Chuck is a prolific fund raiser who has managed to spin various lab theories into funds. This new enterprise of his appears to have addressed some of the criticisms against lab-grown palm oil which humbled Ecover’s palm oil substitute a few years ago.
But if the financial success of other scientists is a guide to Professor Chuck from Bath University, one can expect more funding pitches from Clean Food Group. Take for example, C16 Biosciences, an early pioneer in lab-grown “palm oil” whose website claims that “Our palm oil is sustainable—in fact, it doesn't even involve palm trees. It doesn't cause deforestation, endangering precious animal species, or forcing ...”
Having raised $24 million dollars in funding according to CEO and founder Shara Ticku on her website, C16 Bio can now afford swanky new facilities in The Big Apple thanks to her anti-palm oil sales pitch.
Anti Palm Oil Science Promoting Healthy Attributes of Palm Oil?
If there is a silver lining to this race to replace palm oil with a lab-grown version, it has to be in the fact that they recognize the importance of palm oil to human health.
This is the only possible explanation for the persistence of scientists to develop lab-grown palm oil.
Why else would these scientists in reputable universities worldwide chase after replicating palm oil when the land use for soy and cottonseed etc is much larger according to Our World In Data? With everything that we know today of the importance of grasslands, prairies and savannahs to fighting climate change and biodiversity loss, the only explanation is that these scientists know, that palm oil is better for human health.
These scientists have likely read reports on how oleic acid in other oils like sunflower are bad for human health. Soyabean oil, as the most ubiquitous vegetable oil in North American food has been shown to not only lead to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression so that’s not an option to replace in the lab.
As for palm oil, multiple third party assessments of the health benefits of palm oil have identified palm oil as best for human health with the caveat that it may cause deforestation.
But isn’t deforestation for palm oil a threat to all humanity?
This is the biggest piece of disinformation told in order to demonize palm oil. There’s no doubt that forest canopies are important in the fight against climate change but its not the be-all and end-all of human existence. As new research shows, grasslands are a huge climate solution with a more secure carbon storage than forests. This report on wildfires and forest carbon in the US is a must-read for anyone who is not convinced that grasslands are a safer bet to store carbon. Grasslands, prairies, savannahs etc are the only places where crops like soy and rapeseed are grown.
How we grow our food and where we grow it is part of the global struggle to make food sustainable. It’s a complex argument where cheap Australian beef for example, with its associated deforestation, threatens the efforts of British beef farmers to produce beef sustainably.
However, producing deforestation-free palm oil is a no-brainer as multiple certification schemes have been been around for decades, to guarantee that its presence in food and fuels is deforestation free.
So why are scientists chasing a lab-grown, no-deforestation palm oil product?
The answer, quite simply, is that they know, there is a sucker born every minute.
What should the palm oil industry make of these attempts to grow palm oil in a lab?
Thanking the scientists for trying to grow palm oil in a petri-dish may sound counter-intuitive but one has to admit, that the endless efforts to grow palm oil in a lab, actually reflects on how important palm oil is to human health.
Published August 2022. CSPO Watch
Earlier examples include the University of Bath, UK, which sold a microwave idea to produce palm oil from wastes in 2016. Researchers at Australia’s CSIRO were reported to be selling a GMO tobacco leaf replacement for palm oil. The silliest science came from the University of Guelph, Canada which sold their laboratory experiment as “good for human and planetary health” by turning vegetable oils in cottonseed and groundnuts, into palm oil.
The failure of these lab experiments to deliver a palm oil alternative has not stopped scientists from developing new ideas for funding as their laboratory experiments are spun into private enterprises like Clean Food Group which sold the idea that:
Once scaled, the company says its technology has the potential to displace palm oil by bringing a range of more sustainable products to the market. Its yeast-based alternative is said to be bio-equivalent to palm oil in terms of its nutritional and fatty acid makeup and performs in the same way that palm oil does.
Not much is known about Clean Food Group beyond the fact that the private enterprise, created by Professor Chris Chuck of Bath University has attracted some new money. Professor Chuck is a prolific fund raiser who has managed to spin various lab theories into funds. This new enterprise of his appears to have addressed some of the criticisms against lab-grown palm oil which humbled Ecover’s palm oil substitute a few years ago.
But if the financial success of other scientists is a guide to Professor Chuck from Bath University, one can expect more funding pitches from Clean Food Group. Take for example, C16 Biosciences, an early pioneer in lab-grown “palm oil” whose website claims that “Our palm oil is sustainable—in fact, it doesn't even involve palm trees. It doesn't cause deforestation, endangering precious animal species, or forcing ...”
Having raised $24 million dollars in funding according to CEO and founder Shara Ticku on her website, C16 Bio can now afford swanky new facilities in The Big Apple thanks to her anti-palm oil sales pitch.
Anti Palm Oil Science Promoting Healthy Attributes of Palm Oil?
If there is a silver lining to this race to replace palm oil with a lab-grown version, it has to be in the fact that they recognize the importance of palm oil to human health.
This is the only possible explanation for the persistence of scientists to develop lab-grown palm oil.
Why else would these scientists in reputable universities worldwide chase after replicating palm oil when the land use for soy and cottonseed etc is much larger according to Our World In Data? With everything that we know today of the importance of grasslands, prairies and savannahs to fighting climate change and biodiversity loss, the only explanation is that these scientists know, that palm oil is better for human health.
These scientists have likely read reports on how oleic acid in other oils like sunflower are bad for human health. Soyabean oil, as the most ubiquitous vegetable oil in North American food has been shown to not only lead to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety, and depression so that’s not an option to replace in the lab.
As for palm oil, multiple third party assessments of the health benefits of palm oil have identified palm oil as best for human health with the caveat that it may cause deforestation.
But isn’t deforestation for palm oil a threat to all humanity?
This is the biggest piece of disinformation told in order to demonize palm oil. There’s no doubt that forest canopies are important in the fight against climate change but its not the be-all and end-all of human existence. As new research shows, grasslands are a huge climate solution with a more secure carbon storage than forests. This report on wildfires and forest carbon in the US is a must-read for anyone who is not convinced that grasslands are a safer bet to store carbon. Grasslands, prairies, savannahs etc are the only places where crops like soy and rapeseed are grown.
How we grow our food and where we grow it is part of the global struggle to make food sustainable. It’s a complex argument where cheap Australian beef for example, with its associated deforestation, threatens the efforts of British beef farmers to produce beef sustainably.
However, producing deforestation-free palm oil is a no-brainer as multiple certification schemes have been been around for decades, to guarantee that its presence in food and fuels is deforestation free.
So why are scientists chasing a lab-grown, no-deforestation palm oil product?
The answer, quite simply, is that they know, there is a sucker born every minute.
What should the palm oil industry make of these attempts to grow palm oil in a lab?
Thanking the scientists for trying to grow palm oil in a petri-dish may sound counter-intuitive but one has to admit, that the endless efforts to grow palm oil in a lab, actually reflects on how important palm oil is to human health.
Published August 2022. CSPO Watch
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