The Curmudgeon goes Palm Oil Free

After much wrangling and researching, I have decided that 2011 will be the year I strive to be palm oil free. It's a near-ubiquitous product that you'll find sneakily placed in a lot of ingredient lists, from chocolate bars to shampoos and everything inbetween.

So why am I so uptight about it? Well, here's why.

Producers of palm oil have been reported by the BBC to have illegally logged and cleared ground in high conservation areas in Borneo. Not only is this a devastating attack on vital forestry, but also represents a massive loss of habitat for the Orangutan. It is a destructive, ruthless industry, that is relied upon heavily to provide cheap vegetable oil. It's also used as a source of cheap, "clean" biofuel - although the idea of deforesting Indonesia to provide oil to burn strikes me as at the best illogical, and at the worst farcically stupid.

I never claimed to be above emotional blackmail. Here, have two baby Orangutans to make you feel *extra* guilty.

Avoiding it isn't easy. Thankfully, being the lentil eating hippy that I am, I avoid a large wedge of processed foods and make a lot of things from scratch, thereby avoiding a lot of everyday sources. For those with a slightly less holier than thou attitude to the kitchen, I find this blog has an excellent list of how to spot palm oil in the ingredients list. You'd be surprised. Fancy a nice bacon sarnie? Well, the bread, if store bought, most likely has palm oil as its fat content. Many meats also are impregnated with oils for "cooking ease", which in many cases, bizarrely, is palm oil. Vegetable oil based spread? I think you've guessed the pattern by now.

Australia seems to be the best place to go palm oil free for the moment - there is a relatively high profile campaign to avoid the product, with brands of cleaning product and foodstuffs in major supermarkets heavily promoted as palm oil free. I heartily approve of their example. Here in the UK, less of a fuss seems to have been made, and it's not quite so easy to find products definitely free of palm oil and its derivatives.

Where I fall down is my love of the tasty treat - chocolate. Palm oil is in almost every brand, and even if it comes from those labelled with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) logo, I'm keen to avoid it. As I've said, it's an industry I want no part in supporting. So who are the go-to brands to avoid palm oil?

LUSH cosmetics have already removed almost all palm oil from their supply chain, and are working hard to remove the very last traces of it.

Walkers crisps - cook exclusively in sunflower oil, so as far as palm oil content goes, it's a guilt free treat. The same goes for their Doritos brand.

For lovers of other crisps, you can also enjoy Hula Hoops and Kettle Chips without palm oil.

Mainstream cheese lovers - rejoice! Cathedral City and Dairylea are both good (though I'd recommend a good local cheesemaker instead).

Waitrose and Co-op label ALL of their own brand products using palm oil clearly instead of hiding behind other, more anonymous names, so read those labels clearly!

Chocolate is a very difficult one, as so many brands use it. There is an excellent little brand, Chokolit, that is totally palm oil free and donates money to fantastic causes. I HIGHLY recommend this brand! I would love to find more brands that are palm oil free, so please let me know in comments if you find anything further. STOP PRESS! - Divine and Dubble chocolate is made from pure cocoa butter rather than adding vegetable oil, and is totally palm oil free. It's also fair trade.

For further information, I'd read Not Just an Essex Girl's excellent post that has links to some very helpful sites for lists of foods, cleaning products and general information.

Even if you can't avoid it entirely, I hope this post has helped to highlight some of the issues involved and show how you can come a few steps closer to being an ethical consumer.

Have a week or two to spare this summer?

There are lots of ways to spend your free time in a green manner these days, especially now the "Big Society" means community groups will need more volunteer support to stay afloat. Here are my top three recommendations for a volunteering holiday should you be feeling philanthropic with your time this summer.

The Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys, Wales

A fantastic place where volunteers can learn about an extremely wide variety of skills during a short (or long term if you're hardcore) placement. This can range from gardening to turbine construction, as volunteers generally muck in and do whatever is needed. I have visited this centre several times and it is a constant joy and inspiration. Competition for volunteer places is hot, so get your application in before March to be in with a shout.

National Trust working holidays

From £90 a week, these give you food and board and the opportunity to experience a wide variety of roles that are a little out of the ordinary. Conservation roles, dry stone walling, forestry - there are lots of great practical skills to be learnt here for the enthusiastic volunteer.

Green Stewards - Festival Stewarding

This group steward some of the biggest festivals, and in return for a deposit, or studying for one of their NVQ courses, you can get paid to work at festivals and get in for free. This year they are stewarding at not only mainstream events like Glastonbury, but also my personal favourite Beautiful Days.

Have any you think I should be recommending? Send me a link!

If you go down to the woods today...

...you might find a very large FOR SALE sign.

Not having found enough change down the back of the Benefits sofa, the government are now attempting to sell of assets to get a bit of cash together to help stick a finger in the dam of the declining economy. The latest measure is to sell off forestry currently under government control, a tactic that has shown the divide in green and environmentalist groups. To read the proposals and find out more about the consultation, I recommend the DEFRA website.

In the red corner, there are those who decry this as privatisation through the back door, stealth tax-relief for Cameron's toff big business chums, a blow to the freedom of access to the nation's forestry. This corner has a (probably entirely justified) distrust for the government, and dismisses clauses such as protected access rights as just another easily broken promise. If you find yourself in this camp, I recommend signing the petition at 38 Degrees to stop the proposals.

In the blue corner, there are those that welcome the decentralisation of control, and are optimistic for the proposals for community and charity groups to run ancient and heritage woodlands. This corner cautiously believes in the proposals. If you find yourself in this camp, or want to learn more about the benefits, try this Guardian crowd-sourced piece about the potential benefits of the changes.

Where do I stand? Well, forgive this blogger for being on the fence until more concrete results are seen from the proposals. I try to be optimistic, as I believe that community groups are probably the best way for our ancient woodlands to be kept, groups who have direct and passionate connections to the woods in question. I also understand the need for a more commercial form of management for our large swathes of post-war softwood plantations that could benefit from targeted business ownership. What I'm not so positive about is the spectre of small local groups being unable to meet the costs of purchase for woodlands and them passing by default to commercial interests, which have the potential for mismanagement and restricting access with the impunity of large corporations confident in their legal representation.

This old tree hugger will be watching the case with interest.

The amazing disappearing blogger

It's been a quiet old six months or so here on the Green Curmudgeon blog. This isn't because of a lack of things to talk about - there have been political and environmental intrigue in spades.

Let's just say I'm allergic to Tories in government.

But now, I AM BACK. Just as aggravated as ever.

Coming up - my recommendations for good Green reading on the internet, a rundown of 2010, and my pick of events for the coming year. Oh, and probably lots and lots of ranting.

Why the green movement needs to embrace GM

It has been cast as the great scientific evil of our time - creator of "Frankenstein foods" that will bring untold chaos to the natural order and decimate native species, not to mention damage health of those that consume it. Genetic modification of food crops will cause as much anger and bile at a green conference as nuclear arms, but is the furore deserved?

Let me start by saying that I am far from championing companies like Monsanto and their well documented less than philanthropic approach to spreading GM seed to both the developed and third world. The company have had their share of legal wranglings over various incidents, and as someone not legally qualified, I will not conduct a detailed examination of the charges. Suffice to say that I do not believe them to be the exemplar of marketing and deployment of GM products into the food chain, and that myriad other companies and institutions are doing stirling work that is sadly thrown into the shade by a big corporation doing what so many corporations are wont to do.

So what are the main arguments against GM technology?

1. "Terminator"  or GURT technology

In some GM seedcrop, they are engineered so that their seed will be infertile. It should be noted that this is NOT a strategy used in any commercial seed crops (due in no small part to the massive backlash from farmers and indigenous peoples). In warm, wet climates it has the benefit of stopping crops from sprouting before harvest. However, if it ever was used commercially, there are significant problems for farmers who use saved seed for a large proportion of the next season's crop; this is a matter for bodies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation to examine and legislate for.

2. Adverse health effects

The Greenpeace website states that "they pose a serious threat to biodiversity and our own health", but does not elaborate further as to what this means. Instead, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine states that in 15 years of GM food consumption, there have been no discernible health effects. In the world of peer reviewed practice, there have been only a small number of papers proposing a deleterious effect, which have subsequently been shown to be severely lacking in their methodology. I have three pieces of advice when researching the topic: 1) stick to reputable academic journals rather than websites and other sources that do not cite their evidence in an accountable manner; 2) find out who is sponsoring or backing the research, as this can highlight what results they were hoping to find, and any inherent bias that may have crept through and 3) look for academic responses to any paper you read, as it will give a good breakdown of just how valid the research methodology is.

3) Adverse effects on the environment

As well as the risk of cross pollination between crop and native species, there are also concerns that as weeds become increasingly glysophate (a popular and relatively low impact weedkiller) tolerant, then farmers will have to fall back on more traditional, and more harmful, weedkillers. Leaving the fact the glysophate itself isn't exactly a bath of ambrosia for the soil anyway, the spectre of more harmful weedkillers is one the many of the organic farming lobby are most vocally protesting. Given that the reduced use of chemicals is one of the great selling points of GM, the problems of pest plant resistance are possibly some of the greatest stumbling blocks to GM crops being the acceptable future of food production.

What are the main benefits of GM?

1) Increased nutritional content

In a world with an expanding population, foods with a higher calorific or nutritional yield per harvest will form a vital factor in feeding the poorest nations, whether by international aid or subsistence farming. Although this is often countered by arguments of intellectual property of GM products blocking benefits for the third world, this is merely political obfuscation of what is a true benefit. Although headlines are dominated by large corporations, they are not the only face of genetic modification.

2) Reduction in pesticide use

I firmly believe that if the organic food movement were to embrace GM products, then there could be real progress on the use of pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals in world farming. Not just in food crops: the cotton industry is one of the worst offenders for its high usage rate of damaging pesticides. GM cotton has allowed a sharp decline in the amount of pesticides used to be made possible, and further advances could improve upon these results. As well as the obvious environmental benefits of using less pesticides, it also represents a cost saving on the part of farmers - providing that the global community works to ensure that GM seedcrop is provided to farmers at a competitive, and realistic pricing that allows the saving to be felt and not lost.

3) Crops to grow in increasingly hostile environments

Climate change, whatever your standpoint on the cause, is happening. Arid areas are spreading, whilst others are suffering further floods. GM technology can work to bring us crops that can resist drought, cold or diseases associated with dampness such as blight. When water could be a scarce resource, plants that need less of it will be a boon to local economies; by ensuring the GM technology works in hand with other plant breeding techniques, varieties can be produced to help feed people in the face of change.



I conclude by saying that, in principle, I approve of GM technology; I believe that with climate change looking and vast global populations requiring sustenance, it can form part of the way forward. I'm not saying it's a panacea that will free us from all of the troubles the future might bring. I am merely stating that progress is not always an evil. I am always frustrated by naysayers who seem to think that "normal" agriculture has any less in the way of complex scientific procedures behind it; indeed, with practices such as embryo recovery and molecular marker work, it is just as far removed from the "natural world" as any GM procedure. Mankind has been working with, and improving on, nature's model since the first farmers - this is not some kind of rejection of the natural order or deliberate attempt to, dare I say it, "play God". It is about survival. Survival of not just the human race, but the vast ecosystem that sustains us.

Hay Festival - my idea of heaven

Should I be proved wrong and find that there is indeed an afterlife, I hope it resembles the Hay festival. I was there yesterday volunteering for an educational group, and left with the most enormous sense of happiness I've felt in a long time. Yes, it was enough to warm even my miserly misanthropic heart.

I was hoping to get word on their green credentials and policies before making this post, but as I am returning on Sunday to see one half of our current ruling gestalt speak, there will be a more complete "part two" review of the event after then.

Suffice to say I was impressed, especially with Sky's "rainforest rescue" area that encouraged people, children especially, to learn interesting facts about the Amazonian rainforest and help to preserve it. Now, rainforests are one of this curmudgeon's emotional weak spots, a chink in my stubbornly grumbly armour. I was doing fine until we sat down to watch a 3D film of an instantly engaging and mildly moonstruck Brazilian conservationist. I went from sniffles to full blown tears as acres of shorn forest panned across the screen. I'm quite sure that some other members of the audience thought me thoroughly demented.

Thanks for all the fish?

It seems fitting that on Towel Day, a story about the high intelligence of dolphins and whales should crop up. Anyone who has ever read Hitchhikers will fail to be shocked at new discoveries on the relative brain power of these majestic creatures.

This BBC article starts by asking if we should ever be hunting such creatures. Personally, I find that if you have to ask yourself that question, you're a heartless monster. Of course we shouldn't be hunting them - they are intelligent, graceful beings, and not even the fearsomely named Killer Whale is a threat to us. Oh, but apparently they're good for research. Research, one assumes, into how many whales you can kill in a season.

The article goes on to raise brief surprise that public backlash after the death of a handler at SeaWorld was directed towards the captors, not the whale. I'm not sure anyone thought angrily of the whale in this instance, so I'm not sure why the writer thought the lack of anger "surprising". There has been growing unease about keeping such large, socially complicated and fundamentally wild creatures in captivity for any reason, and a tragic event like this only highlights just how inadvisable it is. I could not contemplate seeing such a sight as a voyager of the ocean waves, an animal of such demonstratively social tendencies, being kept in a pen with little company for the entertainment of others. Still, I cried about keeping elephants in British zoos, so maybe I'm just a pathetic liberal whingebag.

My hope is that June's meeting of the IWC rejects whaling as a valid "research" tool and finally starts the process of ending this barbaric practice for good. For more on these issues, I heartily recommend the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society for their website, lots of information and how you can help.