Palm Oil


Book Description

Palm Oil: Production, Processing, Characterization, and Uses serves as a rich source of information on the production, processing, characterization and utilization of palm oil and its components. It also includes several topics related to oil palm genomics, tissue culture and genetic engineering of oil palm. Physical, chemical and polymorphic properties of palm oil and its components as well as the measurement and maintenance of palm oil quality are included and may be of interest to researchers and food manufacturers. General uses of palm oil/kernel oil and their fractions in food, nutritional and oleochemical products are discussed as well as the potential use of palm oil as an alternative to trans fats. Some attention is also given to palm biomass, bioenergy, biofuels, waste management, and sustainability. - Presents several chapters related to oil palm genetics, including oil palm genomics, tissue culture and genetic engineering. - Includes contributions from more than 80 well-known scientists and researchers in the field. - In addition to chapters on food uses of palm oil, the book contains nonfood applications such as use as a feedstock for wood-based products or for bioenergy. - Covers key aspects important to the sustainable development of palm oil.




Palm Oil


Book Description

A fascinating story of how palm oil has shaped our world




Oil Palm


Book Description

Oil palms are ubiquitous—grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa's oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil palm agriculture as a panacea to rural development in Southeast Asia and across the tropics. As plantation companies tore into rainforests, evicting farmers in the name of progress, the oil palm continued its rise to dominance, sparking new controversies over trade, land and labor rights, human health, and the environment. By telling the story of the oil palm across multiple centuries and continents, Robins demonstrates how the fruits of an African palm tree became a key commodity in the story of global capitalism, beginning in the eras of slavery and imperialism, persisting through decolonization, and stretching to the present day.




The Oil Palm


Book Description

The oil palm is the world's most valuable oil crop. Its production has increased over the decades, reaching 56 million tons in 2013, and it gives the highest yields per hectare of all oil crops. Remarkably, oil palm has remained profitable through periods of low prices. Demand for palm oil is also expanding, with the edible demand now complemented by added demand from biodiesel producers. The Oil Palm is the definitive reference work on this important crop. This fifth edition features new topics - including the conversion of palm oil to biodiesel, and discussions about the impacts of palm oil production on the environment and effects of climate change alongside comprehensively revised chapters, with updated references throughout. The Oil Palm, Fifth Edition will be useful to researchers, plantation and mill managers who wish to understand the science underlying recommended practices. It is an indispensable reference for agriculture students and all those working in the oil palm industry worldwide.




Planet Palm


Book Description

Finalist, Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism In the tradition of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, a groundbreaking global investigation into the industry ravaging the environment and global health—from the James Beard Award–winning journalist Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade: oil-palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations. James Beard Award–winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years traveling the globe, from Liberia to Indonesia, India to Brazil, reporting on the human and environmental impacts of this poorly understood plant. The result is Planet Palm, a riveting account blending history, science, politics, and food as seen through the people whose lives have been upended by this hidden ingredient. This groundbreaking work of first-rate journalism compels us to examine the connections between the choices we make at the grocery store and a planet under siege.




Palm Oil Diaspora


Book Description

An environmental history and political ecology of palm oil in colonial Brazil, the African diaspora, and the Atlantic World.




The Palm Oil Controversy in Southeast Asia


Book Description

"This book is a compilation of papers first presented at the workshop "The palm oil controversy in transnational perspective" that took place in Singapore, 2-4 March 2009. The workshop was jointly organized by the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit'at, Bonn and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. It was funded by Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)"--Preface.




The Palm Oil Miracle


Book Description

Palm oil has been used as both a food and a medicine for thousands of years. It was prized by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt as a sacred food. Today palm oil is the most widely used oil in the world. In tropical Africa and Southeast Asia it is an integral part of a healthy diet just as olive oil is in the Mediterranean. Palm oil possesses excellent cooking properties. It is more heat stable than other vegetable oils and imparts in foods and baked goods superior taste, texture, and quality. Palm oil is one of the world's healthiest oils. As a natural vegetable oil, it contains no trans fatty acids or cholesterol. It is currently being used by doctors and government agencies to treat specific illnesses and improve nutritional status. Recent medical studies have shown that palm oil, particularly virgin (red) palm oil, can protect against many common health problems. Some of the health benefits include: Improves blood circulation; Protects against heart disease; Protects against cancer; Boosts immunity; Improves blood sugar control; Improves nutrient absorption and vitamin and mineral status; Aids in the prevention and treatment of malnutrition; Supports healthy lung function; Supports healthy liver function; Helps strengthen bones and teeth; Supports eye health; Highest natural source of health promoting tocotrienols; Helps protect against mental deterioration, including Alzheimer's disease; Richest dietary source of vitamin E and beta-carotene.




Waste Management in the Palm Oil Industry


Book Description

This book presents the technological developments that are currently being researched or implemented in the management of palm oil industrial waste. After introducing the plantation and milling processes, the book focuses on the wastes generated solely from plantation and milling activities, as reducing waste from these two sectors will enhance the overall sustainability of the entire palm oil industry eco-system. It then evaluates the sustainability of current practices and elaborates on technological developments in the two sectors, before critically assessing options to treat wastes generated from the plantation and milling process. To properly contextualise the work, it also includes a section on socio-economical sustainability, as well as an industrial case study. A valuable resource for academics interested in the evolution of sustainable waste management strategies within this industrial context, the book also appeals to practitioners in the field who wish to improve the sustainability of their particular plantation or mill.




The Oil Palm Complex


Book Description

The oil palm industry has transformed rural livelihoods and landscapes across wide swathes of Indonesia and Malaysia, generating wealth along with economic, social, and environmental controversy. Who benefits and who loses from oil palm development? Can oil palm development provide a basis for inclusive and sustainable rural development? Based on detailed studies of specific communities and plantations and an analysis of the regional political economy of oil palm, this book unpicks the dominant policy narratives, business strategies, models of land acquisition, and labour-processes. It presents the oil palm industry in Malaysia and Indonesia as a complex system in which land, labour and capital are closely interconnected. Understanding this complex is a prerequisite to developing better strategies to harness the oil palm boom for a more equitable and sustainable pattern of rural development.