Which Chemical Names To Look For When Trying To Avoid Palm Oil

Palm oil is in roughly half of all available packaged products. It is in your food, your cosmetics and your cleaning products. The products that contain palm oil do not always list palm oil as an ingredient, palm oil has a bad reputation and rightly so, the palm oil industry is responsible for mass deforestation, the endangerment of multiple species, a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions and the use of both child and slave labour. To disguise palm oil it is often listed as vegetable oil or its chemical name, there are also a wide range of ingredients that use palm oil as a precursor. Below we have listed many of the common names to watch out for on the ingredients list of the products you buy when you want to avoid palm oil.

The different ingredient names for palm oil

Vegetable Oil

Vegetable Fat

Elaeis Guineensis

PKO – Palm Kernel Oil

PKO fractionations: Palm Kernel Stearin (PKs); Palm Kernel Olein (PKOo)

PHPKO – Partially hydrogenated Palm Oil

FP(K)O – Fractionated Palm Oil

OPKO – Organic Palm Kernel Oil

Palmitate – Vitamin A or Asorbyl Palmitate

Palmates (Any ingredient ending in palmate)

Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Avoid similar chemical names)

Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (Avoid similar chemical names)

Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)

Glyceryl

Glyceryl Stearate

Stearic Acid

Steareth -2

Steareth -20

Hydrated palm glycerides

Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye

Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate

Disclaimer

A few ingredients on this list can be derived from a number of different precursor ingredients for example Sodium Laureth Sulphate can be made from coconut instead of palm oil and Vitamin A Palmitate can be made from any vegetable oil. In most cases palm oil is the cheapest option so it is more than likely that palm oil is used, you cannot be 100% that this is the case without some pretty extensive research every time you check the ingredients such as contacting the manufacturer and all suppliers throughout the supply chain and that is if they are willing to talk to you.

Sources

https://www.ran.org/the-understory/palm_oil_s_dirty_secret_the_many_ingredient_names_for_palm_oil/

https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/25-sneaky-names-palm-oil.html

https://orangutanalliance.org/alternative-names-for-palm-oil