I'd appreciate it if you could help me
Vegetable fats" are used as ingredients in many processed foods such as potato chips, chocolate, ice cream, cup noodles, curry roux, etc.
Most of these "vegetable fats" are palm oil. Palm oil is oil extracted from the pulpy part of the fruit of the oil palm. If soybean oil or rapeseed oil were used, they would be proudly labeled as such because they are much more expensive than palm oil. Therefore, most "vegetable fats" are considered to be palm oil.
Unlike animal fats from pigs and cows, palm oil is labeled as a vegetable oil and fat, which sounds healthy, but it is not. Unlike other vegetable fats, palm oil is an unusual vegetable oil that contains a higher percentage of saturated fatty acids than lard or beef tallow, which are known to increase cholesterol in the blood. However, the negative image of palm oil is partly due to a negative campaign launched by the American Soybean Association since the late 1980s to protect the position of soybean oil, which competes with palm oil.
The three main uses of palm oil are for food, as mentioned earlier, soap detergent, and diesel fuel. Palm oil diesel fuel is gaining attention as a plant-based alternative to petroleum. Also, soap was once made from animal fat, but is now made from coconut and oil palm oil. And the most common use is for food products. Palm oil is the most produced vegetable oil in the world.
There are two main reasons why palm oil has increased so much. The first is its low cost. The oil palm bears fruit throughout the year, making it possible to produce 8 to 10 times as much oil as soybean oil or rape oil. Compared to other oils, the same planted area produces more oil, and thus the price is lower. Second, palm oil is easy to use. Because palm oil contains a close ratio of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, it can be easily processed into both liquid and solid oils. Animal fats and oils are high in saturated fatty acids and become solid at room temperature. Vegetable fats and oils are high in unsaturated fatty acids and become liquid at room temperature.
Oil palm can only be grown in tropical regions, mainly in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Due to the global demand for palm oil, tropical rainforests in these regions are being developed on an enormous scale and turned into oil palm plantations. It is estimated that the demand for palm oil will continue to increase year by year. Deforestation, labor problems for local people, and the decrease in the number of animals living in the rainforests are just a few of the issues that need to be addressed.
