Psalm 92:12 צדיק כתמר יפרח ...

The righteous willflourish like the palm tree…

This week we mention three different typesof palm.

Palm one is the date palm (Pheonix dactylifera).
Leaf 31 about the citron (Etrog) was reposted last week to mark the Jewish festival of Succot. The inspiration this week is the date-palm frond (lulav) waved with the etrog during the festival.

Palm two is the oil palm (genus Elaeis),native to East Africa (E. guineensis) and South America (E. oleifera).Elaeis is the modern world’s major crop supplying oil for food and chemical processing. The oil extracted from the fruits (see picture), contains mostly unsaturated and mono-unsaturated fatty acids, palmitic and oleic, respectively. It also has significant amounts of polyunsaturated acids and fatty vitamins E and A. Despite controversies, it is considered relatively healthy Where palm oil scores highly is in cooking and industrial processing; here the high palmitic and oleic acid content makes it highly stable and resistant to heat damage.

The oil palm is a fast-growing with excellent yields and has thus taken over enormous land swathes cleared by slashing and burning of tropical forests. The initial impact is temporary; the smoke clears and the oil palms have excellent photosynthesis to restore update of atmospheric CO₂. However, a more-persistent consequence is the loss of natural habitats. Tropical forests flora and fauna are rich ecosystems with huge numbers of species. Many are endangered and some being driven to extinction, some even before they have been “discovered” by man.

This brings us to Palm three – the hand of Homo sapiens with the power to damage or protect the environment. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (#RSPO) brings together parties interested in supporting palm oil production while ensuring that natural habitats are preserved against the encroach of palm-oil farming.

@GreenMountain Biotech was introduced to RSPO in obtaining #Ecocertcertification of our botanical extracts as naturally-derived cosmetic ingredients. Since the extracts contain glycerol manufactured from palm oil, we use glycerolthat meets the RSPO standard.

Further reading

Urugo, M. M., Teka, T. A., Teshome, P. G.,& Tringo, T. T. (2021). Palm Oil Processing and Controversies over Its Health Effect: Overview of Positive and Negative Consequences. Journal of oleo science, 70(12), 1693–1706. https://doi.org/10.5650/jos.ess21160

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