| Only 3 vegetable oils must be labelled in food products in Australia and New Zealand. Those are peanut oil, sesame oil and soy bean oil. The reason for this is that a percentage of the population suffers allergies to these oils.
All other vegetable oils can be labelled as vegetable oil. However the label must declare the amount of saturated fat in the product. So if the label states vegetable oil and then goes on to state the amount of saturated fat you can count on that vegetable oil being either palm kernel oil, palm oil or coconut oil. This is a way of potentially identifying if a product has palm oil in it as other vegetable oils are not saturated. This is for Australia and New Zealand only. Labelling may be different in other countries.
Also if palm oil is used in cosmetics it must be labelled. No exceptions. However it is usually not labelled as Palm oil. It is labelled as Elaeis guineensis This is the name given to palm oil by the International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredients. (INCI). Misleading labels on cosmetics can lead to action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Association.
So if you want to avoid buying palm oil, when buying food look for the label stating it is vegetable oil. Then look for saturated fat. If only vegetable oil (no animal fat listed) is used and there is saturated fat in the product - you are buying palm kernel oil, palm oil or coconut oil, most probably palm.
"above information provided by primates4primates quoting Australian Government sources" |
