Palm Oil Free Biscuits / Cakes

The palm oil biz comes out of the late 1960s and 1970s obsession with overpopulation - a lot of white scientists in the west were supremely and overly concerned that people in the global south were going to eat all of the food that was being grown. You can see this reflected in stuff like Solyent Green. Anyway, a lot of people in the agribusiness field got together and made this solution which involved using third world countries in a way that they were familiar with (massive slave-run plantations) to make stuff that could be easily processed and stuffed into the new mechanised food production that was happening across the west (and put into things that were sold as ‘exceedingly good cakes’).

At this point the levels of farming and employment are so high, and the western dependence on this policies so deep, you would have to make several long term changes in the way that the countries involved in these changes work. Weirdly, one of the best ways of enacting this change is campaigning for female education and reproductive medicine access, as without a steady stream of people forced into menial wages by growing families it’s impossible for most these sorts of plantations to continue. They have to start paying better wages. One of the worst ways is to stop buying things in Sainsburys, because it’s an ineffectual way of registering your dissatisfaction with mechanised food production and unbalanced global trade, of which palm oil is merely a noticeable ingredient.

Really, it’s ok to be confused about this stuff. It’s ok if you want to think of me as a thick cunt for what seems like a few lines. The answers, as far as I’ve worked out from talking to humanitarians, permaculturists, and the like, is that the west generally has to use less and let the developing countries use more. This seems as likely as nuanced conversations on the internet.