Most of us would be familiar with Palm Oil and various health benefits associated with it. Well, to be frank I was vaguely aware about it but the recent session I attended which was conducted by Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) which did impart a lot of fruitful and fact based information. They say Palm Oil is said to be a nature’s gift to Malaysia and, Malaysia’s gift to the world!

Scientifically known as Elaeis guineenis jaq is a crop whose fruit produces two distinctive types of oil – crude palm oil and crude palm kernel oil. During refining, crude palm oil undergoes alkali refining process which produces refined, bleached and deodorized palm oil (RBD).

Palm Oil is the world’s first certified sustainable vegetable oil. It is associated with a lot of health benefits, some of which are:

• It is great for frying as the oil is highly heat stable making it resistant to oxidation, the same stability allows less fat absorption so that products are rarely soggy.

• Palm Oil is red in color and that is due to the presence of Carotenoids, which in turn help prevent vitamin A deficiency in children. Vitamin E tocotrienols derived from Palm helps in stroke prevention.

Recent times have seen some false campaigns about Palm Oil production in Malaysia for which MPOC has responded to these false allegations. First one being that Malaysia is responsible for deforesting rain-forests and destroying wildlife, which seems irrelevant as the Malaysian Government has committed to protect atleast 50% of the land as forest, a huge percentage which no other country has matched. Then it was told that palm oil has negative health qualities, but these were countered by a recent study from French Foundation for Food and Health who explained that palm oil is not hazardous and highlighted the fact that palm oil has an important role to play in reducing trans fat consumption.

Coming back to the bloggers meet which was held in Trinity Banquet, Taj Vivanta saw an elaborate presentation by Bhavna Shah, Country Representative for India and Sri Lanka of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council who explained in detail about various trends and developments in Palm Oil industry and how cleanly the environmental policies are being followed while producing Palm Oil in Malaysia. The session was much needed as it cleared a lot of wrong understanding which surrounds this industry.

This was followed by an informative session by Dr Meena Mehta, Vice President of Indian Dietetic Association of India who emphasized on best usage and different health benefits that come along with consumption of palm oil in our daily diet.

The fun part which followed saw a lot of games being played amidst all the selfie and photo sessions. It was a nice event altogether, the facts about Palm Oil and its advantages needs to be spread, at the same time there are many misconceptions revolving various geographical and social aspects of this industry which are baseless and needs to be ignored unless it is backed by strong background research.

You can visit MPOC’s official site by clicking here to get further information.