Palm oil carries a unique combination of problems: it drives tropical deforestation, threatens endangered species, releases massive amounts of stored carbon, and is linked to forced labor and child labor across its supply chain. On the health side, it’s roughly 50% saturated fat and can form processing contaminants classified as probable carcinogens. It also shows up in a staggering number of everyday products, making it nearly impossible to avoid. Here’s a closer look at each of these issues.
It’s in More Products Than You Think
You’ve probably heard that palm oil is in about half of all supermarket products. That figure is an overstatement, but the reality is still striking. A study from Wageningen University examined three Western supermarket chains and found palm oil or palm kernel oil explicitly listed on about 8% of products. However, when researchers accounted for items that use unspecified “vegetable oils” or palm-derived chemical ingredients, up to 40% of products on shelves may contain it. It hides under dozens of names on ingredient lists: sodium lauryl sulfate, cetyl alcohol, glyceryl stearate, and many others are commonly derived from palm oil. This ubiquity is what makes the problems below so difficult to solve through individual consumer choices alone.
Tropical Forests and Peatlands Pay the Price
Indonesia has lost 25% of its old-growth forests since 1990, and palm oil is a major driver. By 2020, 7.8 million hectares of Indonesian land had been converted into palm oil plantations. An additional 8.8 million hectares, roughly the size of Maine, had been cleared and were sitting idle, much of it at risk of future palm conversion. Of all land deforested since 1990, over half remained unused for at least a year, suggesting that clearing often outpaces actual planting.
The damage goes beyond losing trees. Southeast Asia’s tropical peatlands store about 20% of the world’s peat carbon. When these swampy, carbon-dense soils are drained for plantations, the exposed peat breaks down and releases CO2 and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Researchers measuring emissions from drained peatland in Malaysian plantations recorded median daily CO2 emissions of nearly 6 kilograms per hectare from drainage ditches alone. That’s a continuous, year-round release from land that previously locked carbon away. Draining peatlands essentially turns a carbon sink into a carbon source, and the emissions persist for decades.
Orangutans and Biodiversity Loss
Palm oil plantations replace some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth. The tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra are home to orangutans, Sumatran tigers, pygmy elephants, and thousands of other species that can’t survive in monoculture plantations. The Orangutan Foundation International estimates that between 1,000 and 5,000 orangutans are killed in palm oil concessions every year. For a species with slow reproduction rates and already small populations, that level of annual loss is devastating.
The problem isn’t limited to charismatic species. When a rainforest is replaced by rows of identical palm trees, the entire food web collapses. Insects, birds, reptiles, and plant species that depend on complex forest structure simply disappear. Plantations support a tiny fraction of the biodiversity found in the forests they replace.
Forced Labor and Child Labor
The U.S. Department of Labor includes palm fruit from Indonesia and Malaysia on its official list of goods produced by child labor or forced labor, and palm fruit from Sierra Leone for child labor. The conditions are well documented: workers face exploitative quota systems that require them to harvest a set number of heavy fruit bunches each day or lose wages. Workers who fall short regularly work late into the night without overtime pay on isolated plantations in extreme heat.
Family members, including children, get pulled in out of necessity. Spouses who aren’t employed by the company end up working alongside their partners to meet quotas. Children pick up loose palm fruits after school, sometimes for hours. Some work during school days or drop out entirely. Under Indonesian law, the conditions on these plantations qualify as hazardous work for children. The isolation of many plantations makes oversight difficult, and workers often have limited ability to leave or access their legal rights.
The Saturated Fat Question
Palm oil is about 45% palmitic acid and 5% stearic acid, both saturated fats. The remaining half is mostly unsaturated: roughly 40% oleic acid (the same type found in olive oil) and 10% linoleic acid. That makes it significantly higher in saturated fat than oils like canola, sunflower, or olive oil, but lower than coconut oil or butter.
The health effects are more nuanced than headlines suggest. A systematic review published in PLOS One found that while palm oil does raise LDL cholesterol compared to vegetable oils low in saturated fat, the difference is “clinically insignificant.” The overall evidence linking palm oil consumption directly to cardiovascular disease remains inconclusive. That said, palmitic acid has shown concerning effects in lab studies. It can interfere with how cells respond to insulin by triggering stress responses inside cells, potentially contributing to insulin resistance over time. These findings come from cell-level research and don’t translate directly to dietary advice, but they suggest that heavy palmitic acid intake isn’t neutral.
Processing Contaminants in Refined Palm Oil
When palm oil is refined at high temperatures (which is standard for the oil used in processed foods), it can form chemical contaminants called 3-MCPD esters and glycidyl esters. These aren’t unique to palm oil, but palm oil tends to produce higher levels of them than other refined oils. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies 3-MCPD as a possible human carcinogen and glycidol (released from glycidyl esters during digestion) as a probable human carcinogen. Animal studies show 3-MCPD damages the kidneys and reproductive organs.
In 2016, a joint evaluation by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that exposure levels for infants, children, and adults may be a health concern, particularly from glycidyl esters. The committee recommended reducing these contaminants in fats and oils, especially those used in infant formula. The FDA has been monitoring levels in the food supply, but no regulatory limits have been set in the United States.
Sustainability Certification Has Limits
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is the most prominent certification scheme, and its 2018 standards include commitments to no deforestation, no peat development, and no exploitation of workers. In practice, the results are mixed. Research published in Nature’s Communications Earth & Environment found that the RSPO’s effects on deforestation and forest protection in Indonesia have been uneven.
One significant problem is “leakage.” When certified plantations commit to protecting nearby forests, deforestation can simply shift to uncertified properties or regions outside the tropical rainforest biome. These other ecosystems aren’t covered by zero-deforestation commitments but are equally important for biodiversity. Informal mills that operate outside certification systems are key drivers of rapid land use change. The certification also doesn’t cover all the land already cleared. Millions of hectares were deforested before any standards existed, and that damage is irreversible on any human timescale.
Why Not Just Ban It?
Palm oil is remarkably productive. Oil palms yield four to ten times more oil per hectare than alternatives like soybean, rapeseed, or sunflower. Replacing palm oil with these crops would require vastly more farmland, potentially causing even greater deforestation elsewhere. Palm oil is also a critical export crop for countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, supporting millions of livelihoods.
The realistic path forward involves reforming how palm oil is produced rather than eliminating it: enforcing no-deforestation policies, restoring degraded peatlands, protecting workers’ rights, and expanding plantations only onto already-degraded land rather than primary forest. For consumers, looking for RSPO-certified products is an imperfect but available step. Reading ingredient lists helps too, though the sheer number of palm-derived ingredients makes full avoidance nearly impossible in a modern grocery store.