About Palm oil
Let's learn what palm oil is!!
What
is palm oil? 
Palm oil is a
vegetable oil got from the fruits or seeds of oil palm which originally come
from Africa.
In Central and South America, they have eaten the fruits since
the 15th century!
An oil palm tree finally grows 25meters high,
and bears fruit bunches (They weighs about 40kg). The size of each fruit is the same as a quail egg.
In fact, we use palm oil
for many products.
For example, food such as margarine, bread, cooking oil
of fast food, chocolate,
snack food, frozen food, cup noodles and ice cream, detergent, paint, candle, ink, shampoo and soap.
"I didn't know that
all of these things are made from palm oil!"
"Why do we use palm oil for a lot of
food?"
"Because we make use of its two
properties."
1. the nature of solid palm oil:
It becomes smooth at high temperature
→used
for
chocolate, margarine, and so on.
2. the nature of
liquid palm oil:
It’s difficult to
oxidize
→ use for
processed foods which have long expiration date.
For example, instant noodles,
snack food, frozen deep-fried food, and so on.
"I understand why palm oil is used for many
products!"
By the way, there are two kinds of palm tree. Coconut palm 
is
different from oil palm
.
From left, the fruit of oil palm, fruit bunch, palm oil
trees.
↑
"Go to the next page and let’s learn about the production of palm oil!
"
Production
“Where is palm oil made?”
“Southeast
Asia countries like Malaysia,
Indonesia and Thailand mainly produce the oil!”
Oil palms need 1500~2000mm of rain per
year,
and more than 5 hours of sunshine a day.
They can grow the palms
well in hot and humid climate.
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“Palm oil is produced the most of all the vegetable oils!”
"Palm oil is not only useful but also
has the highest harvest of vegetable oil. "
The maximum production of palm oil is 4t per
hectare.
(rice
oil:0.084/ha, rape seed oil : 0.59/ha,soy oil :
0.36t/ha,)
“In addition, we can harvest 10~12 times per year.
Because of the high harvest, the price of palm oil is lower than that of
other oils.”
Increasing production of palm oil
Because
the cost of production also low,
the demand is increasing from 1990.
Now
palm oil is top of vegetable oil after overcoming soy oil.
The more population
increases and income of Asia raise,
the more demand of palm oil will
increase.
ConsumptionPalm oil is the vegetable oil,
which is consumed the most in the world
at present.
In this page, let’s zoom in the consumption
of palm oil!
"About what amount of palm oil do we
use?"
"Japanese consume about 4kg a person in one year.
It’s the same
as the palm oil got from about 10 square meters of
land."
"Really?! I didn’t know we eat such a
lot of palm oil!"
"You
may not realize that we consume palm oil so much,
because it hides
in a lot of products. However,
we use so plenty of palm oil before we realize
it!"
In the world, how much do we
consume…?
Expected consumption
The demand of palm oil is increasing rapidly since 1990s.
Because of the growth of population and development of each country,
we can expect the increase of demand.
The consumption in 2011 was about
50million tons but in 2050,
it will be about 77million
tons.
"It’ll terribly increase!!"
"Wait a moment! Aren’t there any
problems…?"
Next, let’s zoom in the problems caused by our consumption of palm oil!
