Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything―and Endangered the World - Hardcover

Zuckerman, Jocelyn C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1787383784 ISBN 13: 9781787383784

Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2021

Synopsis

‘This extraordinary work of investigative journalism will make you cry and gnash your teeth. It will fill you with rage. Essential reading for everyone who wonders if their food choices matter.' — Ruth Reichl, chef, food writer and restaurant critic

‘This is an ugly story, compellingly told.' — Marion Nestle, author of Unsavory Truth

It’s in our instant noodles and chocolate bars, our lipsticks and fuel tanks. But what even is palm oil, and how has it come to dominate our lives so completely? Jocelyn C. Zuckerman travels across four continents and back two centuries to find answers about the most widely used vegetable oil on Earth.

The little oil palm fruit has played an outsized role in world history and economic development. But the multi-billion-dollar palm oil business has been built on stolen land and slave labour; it spurred colonisation and swept away lives and cultures. Today, its fires and mass deforestation generate carbon emissions to rival those of entire industrialized nations, and they’ve pushed animals like the orangutan to the brink of extinction.

Combining history, travelogue and investigative reporting, Planet Palm offers an unsettling, urgent look at a global industry that has become an environmental, public health, and human rights disaster.

Edition details

• Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1787383784
• ISBN 13: 9781787383784
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304