About Palm Oil

Palm Oil

Palm oil (also known as dendê oil, from Portuguese) is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms, primarily the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis, and to a lesser extent from the American oil palm Elaeis oleifera and the maripa palm Attalea maripa.

Palm oil is naturally reddish in color because of a high beta-carotene content. It is not to be confused with palm kernel oil derived from the kernel of the same fruit, or coconut oil derived from the kernel of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). The differences are in color (raw palm kernel oil lacks carotenoids and is not red), and in saturated fat content: Palm mesocarp oil is 41% saturated, while Palm Kernel oil and Coconut oil are 81% and 86% saturated respectively.


Along with coconut oil, palm oil is one of the few highly saturated vegetable fats and is semi-solid at room temperature. Like most plant-based products, palm oil contain zero cholesterol.

Palm oil is a common cooking ingredient in the tropical belt of Africa, Southeast Asia and parts of Brazil. Its use in the commercial food industry in other parts of the world is widespread because of its lower cost and the high oxidative stability (saturation) of the refined product when used for frying.

The use of palm oil in food products has attracted the concern of environmental activist groups; the high oil yield of the trees has encouraged wider cultivation, leading to the clearing of forests in parts of Indonesia in order to make space for oil-palm monoculture. This has resulted in significant acreage losses of the natural habitat of the orangutan, of which both species are endangered; one species in particular, the Sumatran orangutan, has been listed as "critically endangered".

In 2004, an industry group called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed to work with the palm oil industry to address these concerns. Additionally, in 1992, in response to concerns about deforestation, the Malaysian Government pledged to limit the expansion of palm oil plantations by retaining a minimum of half the nation's land as forest cover.

Read this article : Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil / RSPO

Oil Palm Plantations

The History of Palm Oil

Oil palms / Elaeis guineensis

Human use of oil palms may date as far back as 5,000 years. In the late 1800s, archaeologists discovered a substance that they concluded was originally palm oil in a tomb at Abydos dating back to 3,000 BCE. It is believed that Arab traders brought the oil palm to Egypt.

Palm oil from Elaeis guineensis has long been recognized in West and Central African countries, and is widely used as a cooking oil. European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use as a cooking oil in Europe.

Palm oil became a highly sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for machinery during Britain's Industrial Revolution.

Palm oil formed the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' (now is Unilever) "Sunlight" soap, and the American Palmolive brand.

By around 1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria although this was overtaken by cocoa in the 1880s.

Fatty Acid Composition of Palm Oil

Composition of Palm Oil

Fatty acids

Palm oil like all fats, is composed of fatty acids, esterified with glycerol. Palm oil has an especially high concentration of saturated fat, specifically, of the 16-carbon saturated fatty acid palmitic acid, to which it gives its name. Monounsaturated oleic acid is also a major constituent of palm oil. Unrefined palm oil is a large natural source of tocotrienol, part of the vitamin E family.

Carotenes

When unrefined or when processed into red palm oil, it is naturally rich in carotenes, which give it its characteristic dark red color. Like tomatoes, carrots and many other fruits and vegetables but unlike most oils, palm oil naturally contains the nutrients alpha-carotene, beta-carotene and lycopene. Palm oil contains other carotenes including tocopherols and tocotrienols (members of the vitamin E family), CoQ10, phytosterols, and glycolipids.

Read this article : Palm Oil Production and The Nutrition for Health

Processing and use

Many processed foods either contain palm oil or various ingredients derived from it.

Refining

After milling, various palm oil products are made using refining processes. First is fractionation, with crystallization and separation processes to obtain solid (stearin), and liquid (olein) fractions. Then melting and degumming removes impurities. Then the oil is filtered and bleached. Physical refining removes smells and coloration to produce "Refined, Bleached and Deodorized Palm Oil" (RBDPO) and free sheer fatty acids, which are used in the manufacture of soaps, washing powder and other products. RBDPO is the basic palm oil product sold on the world's commodity markets. Many companies fractionate it further to produce palm olein for cooking oil, or process it into other products.

Red Palm Oil

Red palm oil

Since the mid-1990s, red palm oil has been cold-pressed and bottled for use as cooking oil, and blended into mayonnaise and salad oil.

Antioxidants

Red palm oil antioxidants like tocotrienols and carotenes are added to foods and cosmetics because of their purported health benefits.

Butter and trans fat substitute

The highly saturated nature of palm oil renders it solid at room temperature in temperate regions, making it a cheap substitute for butter or trans fats in uses where solid fat is desirable, such as the making of pastry dough and baked goods. A recent rise in the use of palm oil in the food industry has partly come from changed labelling requirements that have caused a switch away from using trans fats. Palm oil has been found to be a reasonable replacement for trans fats; however, a small study conducted in 2009 found that palm oil may not be a good substitute for trans fats for individuals with already elevated LDL levels. The USDA agricultural research service states that palm oil is not a healthy substitute for trans fats.

Biomass and Bioenergy

Palm oil can be used to produce biodiesel, which is also known as palm oil methyl ester. Palm oil methyl ester is created through a process called transesterification. Palm oil biodiesel is often blended with other fuels to create palm oil biodiesel blends. Palm oil biodiesel meets the European EN 14214 standard for biodiesels. The world's largest palm oil biodiesel plant is the Finnish operated Neste Oil biodiesel plant in Singapore, which opened in 2011.

The organic waste matter that is produced when processing oil palm, including oil palm shells and oil palm fruit bunches, can also be used to produce energy. This waste material can be converted into pellets that can be used as a biofuel. Additionally, palm oil that has been used to fry foods can be converted into methyl esters for biodiesel. The used cooking oil is chemically treated to create a biodiesel similar to petroleum diesel.

In wound care

Although palm oil is applied to wounds for its supposed antimicrobial effects, research does not confirm its effectiveness.


You may also like this : Social and Environmental Impact of Palm Oil