Hello happy campers!
You may have seen “Organic Palm and/or Organic Sunflower oil” on our ingredient label as of recently. We are still using Sunflower oil currently and plan to switch to Palm at the beginning of March.
In this blog, we want to introduce our new ingredient to you:
🧡 Organic Palm Oil by company Palm Done Right (PDR)! 🧡
PDR is revolutionizing the Palm Oil industry, producing the most ethical and sustainable edible oil on the planet. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with them!
Click on the photo of an actual PDR plantation below to watch a short video about how their Palm Oil is different... and awesome!
Read on to learn:
🍞 Why we’re starting to use Palm Oil
🐵 How Palm Done Right is full of health and environmental benefits
Firstly, why the change? You may not know it, but the world’s edible oil supply is having an incredibly hard time. Ukraine used to grow and produce well over half of the world's Sunflower Oil. With such a reduction in supply since the war started, prices sky-rocketed for every single type of oil all around the world and availability became uncertain at best.
It's fascinating how global markets are. Even if you source Sunflower Oil produced in the US, or Avocado Oil from Mexico, every single edible oil commodity was affected. For the time being we have been able to source our organic sunflower oil from a US supplier, and our price has increased by 350%. With this volatile situation, it became clear we need the flexibility of another oil.
In our search for the best option, we learned about a Colorado-based company Palm Done Right. They are A MOVEMENT and a community of people to prove palm oil can be grown for good, and when “done right” brings significant positive impact to the world. Their Palm Oi is grown and produced with these 5 core promises:
🌍 100% Organic
🌍 Fully Traceable
🌍 Deforestation-free
🌍 Wildlife Friendly
🌍 Fair & Social
Palm Oil gets a bad rep and for a good reason. Right now, the majority of Palm Oil comes from large plantations in Southeast Asia. Plantations are created by clear-cutting rain-forest without regard for animal habitat, environmental sustainability, treating workers fairly and crops are grown conventionally with the use of chemical fertilizers.
Palm Done Right is on a mission to change that. The 5 promises above is just the beginning and there is much more to tell. The growing practices of PDR farmers, all of which are located in Ecuador, is what excites us the most.
Check out this interview with a PDR palm grower, Jason Crespo, about their growing practices.
In addition, Organic Palm Oil "done right" is incredibly sustainable. Palm is the most productive oil producing plant on the planet. Palm trees produce oil for up to 30 years, year-round, which means less stress on the environment than annual crops.
Palm oil has had a long history of food use, dating back to over 5,000 years. It has been revered as both a nutritious food and a valuable medicine. In Egypt the oil was so highly valued that it was entombed with the pharaohs so that they would have access to it in the afterlife! (Bruce Fife, author of The Palm Oil Miracle).
It contains a vast number of nutritional elements, such as vitamins, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients important for good health. It naturally contains high levels of tocopherols and it is actually nature's best plant source of Tocotrienols, which are nutrients in the Vitamin E family.
Tocotrienols have been show to have a wide range of benefits on human health such as reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol, protecting against heart attacks and even combatting some types of cancers.
Palm Oil consists of about 50% saturated fat. Saturated fats used to be believed to contribute to heart disease. However, most people now view that as an outdated view, especially when the saturated fat is plant-based.
The American Heart Association recommends limiting animal saturated fats – which are found in butter, cheese, red meat and other animal-based foods. Decades of sound science has proven it can raise your “bad” cholesterol and put you at higher risk for heart disease.
Interested in a deep-dive on Palm Oil Nutrition? Find it here!
If you're just looking for Palm Oil 101, find it here!
As Always, thank you for reading and THANK YOU for your support!!! 💚💚💚
- Lacy and Jan