A fun read in the pauses between stuffing Oreos in your piehole, from the AP:
"Jum’s words tumble out over the phone, his voice growing ever more frantic.
“Between sobs, he says he’s trapped on a Malaysian plantation run by government-owned Felda, one of the world’s largest palm oil companies. His boss confiscated and then lost his Indonesian passport, he says, leaving him vulnerable to arrest. Night after night, he has been forced to hide from authorities, sleeping on the jungle floor, exposed to the wind and the rain. His biggest fear: the roaming tigers.
“All the while, Jum says his supervisor demanded he keep working, tending the heavy reddish-orange palm oil fruit that has made its way into the supply chains of the planet’s most iconic food and cosmetics companies like Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.”
Malaysia and Indonesia produce around 85% of the world’s palm oil supply. Have you heard of Borneo? It’s an island divided between these two countries (with a soupçon of Brunei for good measure) that used to be one of the world’s last true wildernesses. It’s the third biggest island in the world, twice the size of Germany.
It’s basically a palm plantation now.
That’s an imagination killer if ever there was one. Not to mention an orangutan killer. Have you seen this video from Borneo of the orangutan in the remnants of the forest it once lived in?
Here’s the problem:
“Palm oil is virtually impossible to avoid. Often disguised on labels as an ingredient listed by more than 200 names, it can be found in roughly half the products on supermarket shelves and in most cosmetic brands. It’s in paints, plywood, pesticides and pills. It’s also present in animal feed, biofuels and even hand sanitizer.”
Am I innocent?
Hell no.
Do I look at labels and try to avoid this shit?
Yep.
Is this hard?
Nope.
Is part of the problem rich societies consuming too much shit filled with this shit?
Yep.
Consuming too much shit in general?
Yep.
Here’s a palm oil example: the consumption of products with palm oil in them has risen 900% in the US since 1999. And there sure as heck ain’t nine times more people living in the US.
And as we know, every dirty story has a bank sitting in the background, pretending to behave, but actually doing really immoral shit.
“Still, giant Western financial institutions like Deutsche Bank, BNY Mellon, Citigroup, HSBC and the Vanguard Group have continued to help fuel a crop that has exploded globally, soaring from just 5 million tons in 1999 to 72 million today, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
The word “shit” is underused, I find.
PS: Taking the train through tropical central Malaysia these days is like visiting a 100km-long palm plantation, symmetrical rows, lobotomy-inducing scenery. The opposite of nature.
PPS: Oreo-Lysol-Hershey bites? Worst snack ever.
[Cover photo: Marco Schmidt]