Give me anything as long as it’s not Palm

Thought for the day:

It is with more frequency (although by no means by every client) that I am asked to create something or suggest ingredients that are ‘palm free’.  I do both without the emotional response that the whole transaction used to elicit.  Why?  Because it’s what I’ve come to expect.

I guess I am a little fatigued at ‘fighting’ the marketing rhetoric of this one as it is powerfully emotive and in the large part truthful and as such I do have a high degree of sympathy with the cause.  Well, when I say the cause I mean the ‘protect our diversity and respect our natural resources’ cause, a cause that is complex, global and multi-faceted.  In short, everything that the average armchair campaigner finds challenging because there is no black or white, no utopian ending or glittering prizes awaiting you.

No, what I have to sit back and process after every happy exchange of ‘palm free’ information is the fact that the conversation stopped there.

Nobody ever questions the alternative.

It is as if I could give them anything as long as it’s not palm.

Anything?

Really?

Ok well anything ‘natural’.

It would be quite feasible that I give them an alternative oil, emulsifier or surfactants made from the next door coconut plantation. Or maybe I offered them a rapeseed oil solution that is quietly helping to contribute to bee deaths across Europe due to the crops thirst for pesticide or maybe I give them an exotic sounding oil from the Amazon…………..

Quite frankly it disappoints me terribly that despite the vast amount of energy and words that go into boycotting palm very little emphasis is given on educating people about practical solutions and alternatives.

The mantra has worked,  the anti-palm lobby now have thousands of foot soldiers who are happy to buy anything that doesn’t contain palm oil rather than sit back and consider changing their habits or putting their hard-earned dollars into technologies that would make a difference – namely waste remediation, algae technology or bio-materials.

Today I would like people to just think about that.

I will be.

Amanda x