Nov 21, 2019 09:25 AM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Have you had a shower, washed your hair, brushed your teeth and ate fried egg today?

While at work, did you snuck a cookie with your coffee, ate instant noodles for lunch, and cleaned your utensils using dishwasher detergent?

When you got home, did you take a night shower and used your favorite body wash and eat chicken with margarine for dinner?

Seems totally normal right? But did you know that you might be taking the homes of poor orangutans?

So how much do you really know about the products that you consume? Do you know where they come from or how are they processed?

Most of the products today are usually free-range, organic, and gluten-free due to legal restrictions. But what about palm oil free commodities, have you ever heard of it?

If you spend your day like the above example, then chances are you consume palm oil at least 10 times a day.

And that is terrible not only for your health but also for orangutans live in palm oil trees.

The growth of the palm oil industry

Well, most of the consumers know that palm oil is an edible variety of vegetable oil extracted from the fruit of the palm oil tree which blossoms in tropical areas around the globe. It is a common alternative for oils in food, makeup products, and biofuel industries. Palm oil is very flexible, cost-effective, long shelf life, and has no trans-fats. You can find dozens of products that includes palm oil as one of its ingredients almost anywhere such as shampoo, body wash, lotion, detergent, lipstick, pizza, chocolate, bread, canned foods and instant noodles.

Today, palm oil crisis leads to death of orangutans. Everything needs massive production and such of those is palm oil.

Because of this emerging problem, there are products that use oil certified by the regulating organization known as Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Those palm oil trees which are proven sustainable won't have any consequences when used.

Palm oil being the most consumed of all vegetable oils worldwide make the oil industries to produce over 50 million tons of it every single year. The half of it goes straight to the products sold in your local supermarkets.

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So what's the problem?

Because of the cheap production costs and undeniably high demand that will continuously grow in the future, pressure on palm oil producing countries like in Indonesia are rapidly expanding their plantations to cater to bigger and faster palm oil production.

Well, many people are not aware that it is done by clearing acres of old-growth rainforest to make space for their expansion. This is illegal and will definitely lead to deforestation and death of endangered species like orangutans, elephants, and tigers.

Those poor creatures are not the only one affected. This can also lead to indigenous right abuses, modern day slavery, child labor, and climate change. Many wild animals are also killed by poachers because expansions like this will open better access to different areas of our forest. 

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