A Nightmare on Palm Oil Street

We are right in the midst of a spooky season, friends! Our favorite time of the year as the days get cooler, the nights get longer, and Scooby-Doo marathons play non-stop! We are hours away from Halloween! Who wouldn’t want to dress up as Frankenstein, Spider-Man, Orangutan, or even a combination of all three?! The possibilities are truly endless and it doesn’t stop there! Just imagine all the candy you can get too….palm-oil-free of course.

What is Palm Oil?

It’s grown only in the tropics. Only the oil palm tree produces this high-quality oil which can be found in so many products we use and eat every day.  You can find it in your detergents, cosmetics, and so many food items we may have never considered. This oil is even lurking inside our ice cream & candy!

However, it’s benefits as a “cheap” and easy-to-harvest oil DO NOT outweigh its impact on our planet.

Large-scale transformations from tropical forests to palm oil plantations have been a devastating impact on a huge number of  plant and animal species. There have been other consequences such as air pollution, soil and water pollution, soil erosion, and and climate change. The removal of the native forests often involves the burning of invaluable timber and remaining forest under growth, emitting immense quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. It isn’t just the forest that gets hurt due to this but also over 300,000 different animals are killed and injured during clearing of forests for further palm oil plantation development. The highly endangered Orangutan has experienced an extreme loss of habitat due to palm oil plantations. Orangutan are often displaced, orphaned, kidnapped, or killed.

Now that is some scary stuff!

What you can do about Palm Oil

Little ways we can help make a difference is buying Palm Oil Free candy for Halloween! Even past this season, consider reading your labels and at a minimum make sure to buy only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (look for the symbol). Even though it might not sound like a lot of work, if everyone makes little changes it can have a much bigger impact.

To help point our friends in the right direction, here is a list of Palm Oil Free Candy:

Airheads (Perfetti Van Mili)
Baby Bottle Pops (Topps)
Blow Pops (Charms / Tootsie Roll Industries)
Boston Baked Beans (Ferrara)
Cadbury Carmello (Cadbury Schweppes)
Chewy Sweetarts (Wonka)
Dum Dum Pops (Spangler)
Dots (Tootsie Roll industries)
Fruit Snacks (Kellogs)
Gobstoppers (Wonka)
Gummy Bears (Brachs)
Hershey Kisses – Chocolate and Dark chocolate w/ Cherry (Hershey’s)
Hershey Nuggets – special dark and extra creamy with almond (Hershey’s)
Hershey’s – creamy milk chocolate w/ caramel (Hershey’s)
Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars (Hershey’s)
Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate (Hershey’s)
Hershey’s w/ Almonds (Hershey’s)
Hershey’s Xtra Dark Assorted Squares (Hershey’s)
Hot Tamales (Just Born Quality Confections)
Jelly Beans (Members Mark)
M&Ms – Chocolate (Mars/Masterfoods)
M&Ms – w/ Peanuts (Mars/Masterfoods)
M&Ms – Raspberry (Mars/Masterfoods)
Mike & Ikes (Just Born Quality Confections)
Mounds (Mars)
Nerds Rope (Wonka)
Nestle Crunch (Nestle)
Push Pops (Topps)
Raisinettes (Nestle)
Red Vines Licorice (Red Vines)
Reeses Peanut butter Cups (Hershey’s)
Ring Pops (Topps)
Runts (Wonka)
Skors (Hershey’s)
Sour Punch Straws
Toblerone Swiss Milk Chocolate
Tootsie Pops, Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Rolls – Fruit and Tootsie mix (Tootsie Roll industries)
York Peppermint Patties (Hershey’s)
100 Grand (Nestle)

Companies Wearing a Disguise 

Watch out! Some companies will change the name of Palm Oil to things such as cetyl palmitate, elaeis guineensis, ethylhexyl palmitate, hydrated palm glycerides, octyl palmitate, palm kernel, palmate, sodium kernelate….and more.

All of us at Zovargo wish you a Haunting Halloween while being Eco-Friendly!