Palm oil is an edible plant oil derived from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis .
Palm oil is naturally reddish because it contains a high amount of beta-carotene (though boiling palm oil destroys the beta-carotene, rendering the oil colourless). Palm oil is one of the few vegetable oils relatively high in saturated fats (like palm kernel oil and coconut oil). It is thus semi-solid at typical temperate climate room temperatures, though it will more often appear as liquid in warmer countries.
Palm oil contains several saturated and unsaturated fats in the forms of lauric (0.1%, saturated), myristic (0.1%, saturated), palmitic (44%, saturated), stearic (5%, saturated), oleic (39%, monounsaturated), linoleic (10%, polyunsaturated), and linolenic (0.3%, polyunsaturated) acids. Like any vegetable oils, palm oil is designated as cholesterol-free,, however saturated fat intake increases LDL cholesterol.
Palm oil is a very common cooking ingredient in southeast Asia and the tropical belt of Africa. Its increasing use in the commercial food industry in other parts of the world is buoyed by its cheaper pricing and the high oxidative stability of the refined product.
Palm oil contains more saturated fats than some other vegetable oils. The palm fruit yields two distinct oils - palm oil and palm kernel oil.
History
Palm oil (from the African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis ) is long recognized in West African countries, and is widely use as a cooking oil. European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use in Europe, but as the oil was bulky and cheap, palm oil remained rare outside West Africa. In the Asante Confederacy, state-owned slaves built large plantations of oil palm trees, while in the neighbouring Kingdom of Dahomey, King Ghezo passed a law in 1856 forbidding his subjects from cutting down oil palms.
Palm oil became a highly sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for the machines of Britain's Industrial Revolution, as well as forming the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' (now Unilever) "Sunlight Soap", and the American Palmolive brand. By c . 1870 , palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria, although this was overtaken by cocoa in the 1880s.
Oil palms were introduced to Java by the Dutch in 1848 and Malaysia (then the British colony of Malaya) in 1910 by Scotsman William Sime and English banker Henry Darby. The first few plantations were established and operated by British plantation owners, such as Sime Darby and Boustead. The large plantation companies remained listed in London until the Malaysian government engineered the "Malaysianisation" policy throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
In December 2006, the Malaysian government initiated merger of Sime Darby Berhad, Golden Hope Plantations Berhad and Kumpulan Guthrie Berhad to create the world’s largest listed oil palm plantation player. In a landmark deal valued at RM31 billion, the merger involved the businesses of eight listed companies controlled by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). A special purpose vehicle, Synergy Drive Sdn Bhd, offered to acquire all the businesses including assets and liabilities of the eight listed companies. With 543,000 hectares of plantation landbank, the merger resulted in the new oil palm plantation entity that could produce 2.5 million tonnes of palm oil or 5% of global production in 2006. A year later, the merger completed and the entity was renamed Sime Darby Berhad.
Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) was formed on July 1, 1956 when the Land Development Act came into force with the main aim of eradicating poverty. Settlers were each allocated 10 acres of land (about 4 hectares) planted either with oil palm or rubber, and given 20 years to pay off the debt for the land. After Malaysia achieve independence in 1957, the government focused on value adding of rubber planting, boosting exports, and alleviating poverty through land schemes. In the 1960s and 1970s, the government encouraged planting of other crops, to cushion the economy when world prices of tin and rubber plunged. Rubber estates gave way to oil palm plantations. In 1961, Felda's first oil palm settlement opened, measuring only 375 hectares of land. As of 2000, 685,520 hectares of the land under Felda's programmes were devoted to oil palms. By 2008, Felda's resettlement broadened to 112,635 families and they work on 853,313 hectares of agriculture land throughout Malaysia. Oil palm planting took up 84% of Felda's plantation landbank.
Research
In the 1960s, research and development (R&D) in oil palm breeding began to expand after Malaysia's Department of Agriculture established an exchange program with West African economies and four private plantations formed the Oil Palm Genetics Laboratory. The government also established Kolej Serdang, which became the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) in the 1970s to train agricultural and agro-industrial engineers and agro-business graduates to conduct research in the field.
In 1979, following strong lobbying from oil palm planters and support from the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) and UPM, the government set up the Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (Porim). B.C. Sekhar was instrumental in Porim's recruitment and training of scientists to undertake R&D in oil palm tree breeding, palm oil nutrition and potential oleochemical use. Sekhar, as founder and chairman, strategised Porim to be a public-and-private-coordinated institution. As a result, Porim (renamed Malaysian Palm Oil Board in 2000) became Malaysia's top research entity with the highest technology commercialisation rate of 20% compared to 5% among local universities. While MPOB has gained international prominence, its relevance is dependent on it churning out breakthrough findings in the world's fast-changing oil crop genetics, dietary fat nutrition and process engineering landscape.
Nutrition
Palm oil and palm kernel oil are composed of fatty acids, esterified with glycerol just like any ordinary fat. Both are high in saturated fatty acids, about 50% and 80%, respectively. The oil palm gives its name to the 16-carbon saturated fatty acid palmitic acid found in palm oil; monounsaturated oleic acid is also a constituent of palm oil while palm kernel oil contains mainly lauric acid. Palm oil is a large natural source of tocotrienol, part of the vitamin E family.
Napalm derives its name from naphthenic acid and palmitic acid.
Further information: palmitic acidThe approximate concentration of fatty acids (FAs) in palm oil is as follows:
Red Palm Oil
Red palm oil not only supplies fatty acids essential for proper growth and development, but also it contains an assortment of vitamins, antioxidants, and other phytonutrients important for good health. Red palm oil gets its name from its characteristic dark red color. The color comes from carotenes such as beta-carotene and lycopene—the same nutrients that give tomatoes, carrots and other fruits and vegetables their rich red and orange colors.
Red palm oil is the richest dietary source of provitamin A carotenes (beta-carotene and alpha-carotene). It has 15 times more provitamin A carotenes than carrots and 300 times more than tomatoes. This has made it a valued resource in the treatment of vitamin A deficiency. People who do not consume enough vitamin A in their diets suffer from blindness, weakened bones, lower immunity, and impaired learning ability and mental function. One teaspoon (about 20 ml) a day of red palm oil supplies children with the daily recommend amount of vitamin A. Nursing mothers, by adding red palm oil into their diets, can double or triple the amount of vitamin A in breast milk.
Red palm oil contains a greater number of nutrients than any other dietary oil. In addition to beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, and lycopene, it contains at least 20 other carotenes, along with tocopherols and tocotrienols (members of the vitamin E family), vitamin K, CoQ10, squalene, phytosterols, flavonoids, phenolic acids, and glycolipids. In a 2007 animal study, South African scientists found consumption of red palm oil significantly protected the heart from the adverse effects of a high-cholesterol diet.
Since the mid-1990s, red palm oil is cold-pressed and bottled for use as cooking oil, and blended into mayonaise and salad oil. It also gives an attractive colour to french fries. Red palm oil antioxidants like tocotrienols and carotenes are also fortified into foods for specific health use and anti-aging cosmetics.
In a 2004 joint-study between Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and Malaysian Palm Oil Board, the scientists found cookies, being higher in fat content than bread, are better providers of red palm oil phytonutrients.
In a 2009 study, scientists in Spain tested the acrolein emission rates from red palm and olive oils, which were much lower than that of polyunsaturated oils like sunflower. The total carotenoid content of red palm oil, 480 mg/L, makes it perfect for developing functional foods round the world, and gives the oil a high oxidative stability and long shelf
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