How can I know if a product has palm oil in it?

Question

I found on the greenpeace website that many prducts have palm oil in them, which is great considering that it can be used as anything from foods to alternative fuel. But due its popularity its cultivation endangers the rain forrests and animals in Indonesia. Now, I am just one person and cannot be a great influence but I kind of want to cut these products out of my life. Please help!the latin name of the plant is Elaeis guineensis Jacq or Elaeis guineensis but that is all I got...

Answer 1

read the ingredient listing it has to on there by law

Answer 2

Various products have different labeling laws.

Cosmetics, for instance, are required to label their ingredients, but some palm-derived products are hidden under different names, such as carnauba wax.

Cleaning products that have formulas they don't want copied don't have to list their ingredients.

What can you do?

Become an educated consumer.

Before buying a product, do research. For instance, if you need a new body lotion, go to the Skin Deep Cosmetics Safety Database (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com) and check your options. The site includes alternate names for all of the ingredients, meaning you can find out if any of them are hiding a rain-forest-damaging secret.

For other products, research brands before you buy.

Go to Consumer Reports Greener Choices Eco-labels Center (www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels) to find out what products' logo claims really mean. If you find labeled Rainforest Alliance Certified, for instance, Consumer Reports confirms that's a highly meaningful, hard-to-attain status that really helps consumers.

Yes, being responsible takes research, but it's certainly worth the effort.

Answer 3

hi there, well just so you know, palm oil is in everything, mostly soaps, because soaps require a type of mutton basically. so we consider the alternative, animal fat. Everyone's beating on procter and gamble for using palm oil but can you imagine what would be happening if they were using animal fats? we need to be aware of it's impact on the environment and P&C needs to get their oil from better suppliers that harvest the oil in a more envrnmentally friendly manner, but, people need to understand that soap can't just be used like crazy cause it's 50 cents a bar.

hope this helps,

m