What to do about the Palm Oil Issue...

I agree palm oil is an issue, and it's personally caused me some angst not just with food, but with buying soap. For a while there, I was replacing my soap made from animal fat, with palm oil, until I realised that maybe that palm oil might well not come from sustainable plantations, but unsustainable practices. What to do, not wash, substitute with some other petrochemical based product, only buy super expensive olive/coconut oil soaps? The reality is, once you're no longer a single young person, and you're on a limited income, the choices become more and more difficult to make.

I don't see how becoming vegan is feasible for most people. I'm glad for those who manage to have this kind of diet, but I just think it's not possible to get everyone to do this and trying simply alienates people from making feasible changes to how they live and buy.

There are people on this earth, lots of us, and only a very small proportion of us with the luxury of living in a fine country like this where food is taken for granted. In these countries where the majority of people live, food comes at a premium, you eat what you can get. The reality is that most developing country inhabitants are already virtually vego anyway, because meat every day is a luxury of developed countries - Australia being one of them.

Countries like ours and the people in them, like us, have a lot of power in our hands regarding what we choose to buy and not to buy at the shops. So, yes, I agree labelling is a great way to address demand for products that cause harm to the planet, we all need to be educated on our buying habits. Palm oil can be produced sustainably too, we can choose to buy sustainably grown palm oil, that creates jobs for people and puts food on their table.

That's a pretty defeatist attitude. I see no reason to not try and get people to go vegan. Having to remove animal body parts and/or secretions from one's diet is by far a smaller sacrifice than the price paid by animals to supply us with those "luxuries", as you say.

If you want to go vegan - you can. There's a reason why there is such a self-description as "economic vegan."

Obviously it hasn't been alienating for us....

It's really not that difficult to make cruelty free choices.. Everyone, vegan or not should read labels fully understand what they are putting on and into their bodies..

As for financial issues, well, I'm currently jobless, my parents pay for virtually nothing but my food and I still manage to buy products that have minimal impacts on the earth & animal welfare. Not trying to toot my own horn or anything, lol. It's worth it to cut back on unessential luxuries so you can buy things like cruelty free soap and beauty products but in my experience they aren't that much more expensive than other products :S

what to do about the soya issue ?~?

What issue is that?

Casper may be talking about knocking down the amazon rainforest to make way for soy plantations?
Though I believe that its not such a big issue anymore http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/14/us-brazil-amazon-idUSTRE53D65C20090414
Also 80% of soy is used to feed livestock, so if we weren't growing soy for livestock to eat then it would have never been a problem.

It isn't an issue any-more because the first highway has been made .... and noone wants to think about it until it is too late to go back.

Abandoning a layer of asphalt is such a waste! Think of the waste that could come from that :< all ruined.


But yeah... the soil basically becomes spoil/desert after a couple of crops of soya... and then the towering forest struggles ONE seed to grow in the same place...

but I mean orang-utan don't live in the Amazon, just the biggest plant/animal diversity on the planet what problem is this? keeee