By John D. Sutter, CNN
When Americans hand out Halloween candy next week they may inadvertently be contributing to the destruction of orangutan habitat thousands of miles away.
But don’t feel guilty. Instead, do something about it.
Many types of Halloween candy — and lots of other packaged foods in the United States — contain palm oil, much of which is farmed in Malaysia and Indonesia, where orangutans live. Wild forests that support the endangered orangutan are being chopped down and burned to grow geometric rows of trees that ultimately produce oil.
The use of palm oil in processed foods is way, way up in part because it doesn’t contain trans fat, which the United States says must be labeled on food packaging because of its unhealthiness. The U.S. imports about 10 times as much palm oil now as it did in the mid-1990s. It’s not that the oil is evil. It’s that production methods need to change.
This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy off CNN Opinion and can be read in its entirety here.
