🌴 Substitute to palm oil brings hope for the rainforest

Palm oil, a vegetable oil found in 50% of all packaged retail goods (ranging from cookies to toothpaste) has finally gotten a viable option. Scientists from Canada have developed an oil that is not only good for human health, but for the earth as well.

The invention created by Alejandro Marangoni, a food scientist at the University of Guelph, and his colleagues, replicates how the human body creates triglycerides. By using a process Marangoni called enzymatic glycerolysis he was able to produce solid vegetable oil and avoid adding saturated fats.

According to the Good News Network, 84% of the oil palm trees grow in two countries, Indonesia and Malaysia. To make way for the palm oil plantations, highly biodiverse tropical rainforest has been cut down. By inventing a supplement that doesn’t stem from the oil palm tree, less to zero rainforests will have to be cut down. This concept will allow food manufacturers to avoid the disastrous oil palm plantations while still managing low prices.

Thanks to Marangoni’s process there is the potential for a brighter future for the rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia.