Candidate of Pharmaceutical Sciences Igor Sokolsky
We approached Freetown on a sunny, hot day, and the breeze brought us the wonderful smells of West Africa... Palm oil, flowers, rotting vegetation created a delightful, intoxicating bouquet.
Gerald Durrell. Catch me a colobus
African oil palm. Photo: Marco Schmidt/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA.
Oil palm fruits. The oil from the seeds of this palm tree is called palm kernel oil. Photo: Bongoman/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA.
Table 1. Melting point of refined deodorized fatty oils intended for Food Industry.
Table 2. Content (in grams) of fatty acids in 100 g of non-drying semi-solid oils. Source: USDA SR-23. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.
Table 3. Content (in grams) of fatty acids in 100 g of vegetable oils. Source: USDA SR-23. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.
Table 4. Vitamin E content and energy value of 100 g of oils. Source: USDA SR-23. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.
Along with the growth of the planet's population and an increase in living standards, the need for food, including vegetable oil, is growing. Over the past ten years, the world has seen a steady increase in the production and consumption of the main types of vegetable oil - palm, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower. Its structure industrial production looks like this: palm oil occupies 35.8%, palm kernel oil - 4.1%, soybean oil - 26.1%, rapeseed oil - 15.1%. The most common sunflower oil in Russia is only in fourth place with a share of 8.6%.
The source of palm oil is the African oil palm. Latin name which - Elaeis guineensis - is produced from Greek words elaion - olive and guineensis - Guinea. The monoecious palm of the palm family grows up to 20-30 m in the wild, and up to 10-15 m in the cultivated state.
Although the oil palm is native to the humid tropics of West and Central Africa, the main plantations and production are concentrated in Malaysia and Indonesia. The industriousness of the population of these countries and the climate created especially favorable conditions to produce more than three-quarters of the palm oil consumed worldwide. These same countries also have the highest per capita consumption so far.
Oil palm grows well in humus-rich soil with plenty of rain and bright sun. Fruits suitable for oil production appear on three to four year old plants. The number of fruits collected increases as the palm matures. Young palm trees produce about 3 tons of fruit per hectare, while 20-year-old palms produce about 13-15 tons.
Wild palm trees bear fruit twice a year, and plantations can produce up to four harvests. The fruit of an oil palm consists of 600-1200 fruits with a total weight of 25-50 kg.
The fruit of the oil palm is a drupe the size of a plum. It is surrounded by juicy fibrous pericarp pulp, which serves as the main raw material for the production of palm oil. Beneath the hard shell is a soft seed called the palm kernel. Palm kernel oil is extracted from the seeds.
Freshly pressed palm oil is orange-colored yellow, pleasant taste and violet smell. In its unprocessed form, it is used only for technical purposes.
With slight heating, this oil can be divided into two fractions: liquid (oleapten) with a melting point of 12-24 o C and solid (stearoptene) with a melting point of 44-56 o C. Most of the crude palm oil is subjected to rectification, bleaching and deodorization, after which it becomes suitable for use in food purposes.
Palm kernel oil extracted from the seeds has a yellow color and a light, pleasant aroma. They receive it in significantly smaller quantities and for more complex technology, therefore it is more expensive than palm oil and is mainly used for the production of high-quality cosmetics and detergents.
About 80% of palm oil is used in food in one form or another. It is used as a vegetable oil for frying, salad dressing, or used in the food industry, adding to ice cream, chocolate, chips, cereals instant cooking, frozen foods, bakery products.
Palm oil, like palm kernel oil, is used for the production of personal care products, cosmetics and household chemicals, including soaps and other detergents, toothpaste, lotions, creams. In world practice, it is also used as a raw material for the production of biofuel.
About 60% of total palm oil is consumed in Asian countries, mainly in Indonesia, India and China. The European Union accounts for 10% of consumption (6 million tons per year), the USA - 2% (1.2 million tons).
Reasons for the growing production and consumption of palm oil include its ability to be used in a wide variety of food and non-food applications, competitive pricing, growing demand from emerging markets, the absence of trans fatty acids and the possibility of obtaining products from genetically modified palms.
In our country, palm oil has acquired a reputation as a “dangerous” and “difficult to digest” fat. Only without understanding anything about the digestion process, one can persistently write that “palm oil is not digested, since its melting point is higher than human body" Meat and fish steaks, pork chops, chicken cutlets, vegetables, fruits and 99.9% of other products also do not dissolve at the temperature prevailing in the human stomach and intestines, but this does not prevent them from being safely digested when eaten in moderation.
For those who are not convinced by this argument, I advise you to carefully study the table. 1.
Solid and semi-solid fats and oils intended for the manufacture of sweets, cakes, ice cream and other delicious products should not have a melting point higher than normal temperature human body only so that confectionery products do not have a greasy aftertaste. That is why, and not because it “does not dissolve” in the stomach, the confectionery industry uses a fraction of refined and deodorized palm oil with a melting point close to 35.6 o C.
Since professional nutritionists believe that the most healthy part of fats are polyunsaturated acids, from this point of view it turns out that palm oil has a clear advantage over cocoa butter and especially butter, which no one has ever thought of throwing a stone at. . The numbers given in the table eloquently speak about this. 2. In the same table you can see the difference in the content of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in palm and palm kernel oil, which is one of the reasons for limiting the use of the latter for food purposes.
And if palm oil is significantly inferior in the content of unsaturated fatty acids liquid oils plant origin(Table 3), then in comparison with semi-solid vegetable oil cocoa and animal butter it has a clear advantage.
With almost equal energy value (calorie content) in terms of vitamin E content, palm oil is practically second only to sunflower oil (Table 4).
It is not palm oil itself that is harmful, but the excessive amount of sweets and other confectionery products that contain it. Any, even the most beneficial vegetable oil, which is considered to be olive oil, consumed in large doses, can disable the entire gastrointestinal system of the body and thereby cause irreparable harm to health.
Palm oil, which is used in the food industry, is much closer to natural products, in contrast to margarine, which, apparently due to the habit that has arisen over a long period of use, for some reason does not cause sharp criticism.
When discussing the benefits or harms of palm oil, one should not miss this important point, how where, in what form and why it is used. The quality of edible palm oil is guaranteed by the presence of a standard Russian Federation- GOST R 53776-2010 “Palm oil. Refined deodorized for the food industry." Such a document could appear only if, based on scientific research it has been proven that this product in certain quantities can be safely used for the production of food products.
Palm oil that has not undergone preliminary rectification is prohibited from being used for food purposes in all countries. In this form, it, as well as palm kernel, serves as a raw material for the production of soap, cosmetics, candles, etc. And only after a complex of technological operations for purification, fractionation, refining and bringing to certain conditions, the very same palm oil that is in everything world has become the most used and cheapest fat in the food industry, regarding which there is still no noteworthy scientifically confirmed data on its harmful effects on the human body.
How palm trees are grown to produce palm oil aslan wrote in March 8th, 2017
In our country, palm oil has become synonymous with low-quality, cheap product. Meanwhile, this is one of the oldest food products of mankind, known back to Ancient Egypt.
Palm oil is the most popular vegetable oil on the planet. According to the World Wildlife Fund, an estimated 50% percent of packaged foods sold in supermarkets contain palm oil.
Today we will learn how palm trees are grown in Indonesia to produce palm oil.
The main wholesale buyers of palm oil are corporations such as Nestlé and Unilever. In addition to food, palm oil is used to produce biofuels, cosmetics, shampoos and many other biochemical products. Every day they need more and more oil. Where can I get it?
It's very simple: thousands of square kilometers of forest and peatland in Southeast Asia are being destroyed to make way for palm plantations.
1. Here we just see the barbaric formation of an oil palm plantation. In the foreground there are new plantings of oil palm trees in place of the destroyed forest, in the back there is the destruction of the forest for new plantations.
2. In the background are endless plantings of oil palms, in front is the destruction of forests for new plantations.
3. To destroy forests, they are simply set on fire. This is Indonesia.
4. It should be noted that due to its incredible productivity, the oil palm allows the most economical use of land for the production of vegetable oil. To produce one ton sunflower oil 2 hectares of land are needed. Palm plantations can produce more than 7 tons of vegetable oil from the same area.
5. There are only 14,000 orangutans left in Sumatra. The reasons for the extinction of the species are poaching and destruction of their habitats. Destroyed habitat habitat of intelligent monkeys who live mainly in trees. The culprit is the oil palm.
6. Indonesia even has rehabilitation centers for these intelligent monkeys before returning them back to the wild.
8. Here they are, the fruits of the oil palm. Since 2015, palm oil has surpassed the production of soybean oil, rapeseed oil and took first place among the production of vegetable oils, 2.5 times ahead of the production of sunflower oil.
9. By the way, palm oil was traded back in the days of the pharaohs, more than 5,000 years ago. Actually, palm oil is made from the pulp of palm fruits.
10. This is what the fruits look like when cut.
12. Elephants enjoy eating the leaves of such palm trees.
13. On palm plantations there are elephant patrols like these to protect the territory from wild elephants so that they do not eat the expensive product.
14. Cutting fruits. By the way, the digestibility, that is, the use by the human body, of high-quality palm oil is 97.5%.
16. In the countries of Asia and Africa, ancient manual technology production of palm oil, shown in the photographs. The palm fruits are first crushed, and then, by heating, the palm oil is forced to melt and separate from the pulp. A similar process takes place during the industrial production of palm oil at biochemical enterprises.
17. Like vegetable oils, sunflower and palm oils do not contain cholesterol. However, due to palmitic acid, palm oil can stimulate the generation of cholesterol by the human body itself, becoming comparable in level of danger from cholesterol to consumption butter. Palm oil is also one of the record holders for vitamins E and A, significantly surpassing other products.
Indonesia, Central Kalimantan. Soon there will be only Dolly Vardens instead of forests.
18. Elephant Patrol. 15 minute break.
High-quality edible palm oil, according to nutritional scientists, is not dangerous to health. But we always have more than one “but”:
it is known that industrial palm oil is often imported into Russia under the guise of edible palm oil, as well as oil that is contaminated due to the fact that tankers that previously transported petroleum products and other non-edible substances are often used for its transportation;
palm oil is today used uncontrollably to falsify products, primarily dairy products.
20. We loaded the truck. This is how millions of tons of palm oil used around the world are born.
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Etc.) to obtain valuable edible and technical oil.
IN growing wild The oil palm is a tree up to 20-30 m high; in cultivation it is rarely higher than 10-15 meters. The trunk appears only in the fourth to sixth year of life, and sometimes under the forest canopy only after 15-20 years. The trunk diameter of an adult tree reaches 25 cm.
Ecology
Wild palm trees bloom and bear fruit only in the 10-20th year of life; in cultivated plants, plants begin to bear fruit in the 3-4th year after planting. It reaches its maximum yield at the age of 15-18 years, but the total lifespan of this plant is 80-120 years.
Oil palm grows in a hot and humid equatorial climate; the optimal average annual temperature for this plant is 24-28°. Optimal annual precipitation: 1500-3000 mm.
It is also very light-loving, development is significantly delayed and yields drop in conditions of even slight shading. As observations have shown, in the rainy season, with insufficient sunlight More male inflorescences are formed, and intense lighting promotes the appearance of female inflorescences.
Oil palm is quite undemanding when it comes to soil and can grow in almost any type of soil in the tropical zone.
Classification by fruit structure
Based on the structure of the fruit, it is customary to divide the variety of forms of oil palms into 3 types:
Application
Two types of oil are obtained from oil palm fruits:
Cultivation
Oil from the fruits of this plant has been produced since ancient times. A jar with traces of palm oil was discovered during archaeological excavations of African burial grounds dating back to the third millennium BC. e. However, cultivating it in industrial scale began only in the 20th century, when companies producing margarine and soap became interested in the oil from its fruits. In 1911, large-scale oil palm cultivation was started in Indonesia, and in 1919 in Malaysia. The area occupied by oil palm in African countries has also been significantly expanded. Now the oil palm has become one of the leading oil crops in the world. In 1988, global production of oil palm oil was 9.1 million tons and is increasing every year.
Oil palm is propagated by seeds. To stimulate seed germination, they are exposed to elevated (37-40°) temperatures. After germination, the seeds are sown in nurseries. From one hectare of the nursery, up to 20 thousand seedlings are obtained, this is enough to plant 60-130 hectares of industrial plantations.
Increases in productivity are achieved by introducing modern intensive technologies cultivation to replace outdated ones, used for a long time by the local population in Africa, as well as the development of new, more productive hybrids and varieties of oil palm that give greater oil yield.
Notes
Literature
- Wulf E. V., Maleeva O. F. World Resources useful plants. - L.: Publishing house. Science, 1969.
- Oil palm - article on the UkrAgroConsult website
Links
- Oil palm- article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Retrieved June 16, 2010)
Wikimedia Foundation.
- 2010.
- Gordon, Alexander
Kliment Ohridski
See what "Oil palm" is in other dictionaries: oil palm - Oil palm. oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, palm tree of the genus Eleis. Distributed in coastal areas from Senegal to the Nile basin, in Chad and the Central African Republic, on the western shores of lakes Mobutu Sese Seko and Nyasa (Malawi). Most... ...
Encyclopedic reference book "Africa"- a tree of the palm family. In the western part of Equatorial Africa. Cultivated in the tropics, extracted from the so-called pericarp. palm oil, and from the seeds, palm kernel oil, used for food... Big encyclopedic Dictionary
Encyclopedic reference book "Africa"- (Elaeis), a genus of plants of the family. palm trees 2 species, in the tropics of South. America and Africa. Naib, the African M. p. guineensis (E. guineensis) is known. Barrel height 15 20 (sometimes up to 30) m. Leaves are pinnate, long. up to 7 m. Monoecious plant, but usually on one... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary
See what "Oil palm" is in other dictionaries:- gvinėjinė alyvpalmė statusas T sritis vardynas apibrėžtis Arekinių šeimos aliejinis, vaistinis augalas (Elaeis guineensis), paplitęs Afrikoje. atitikmenys: lot. Elaeis guineensis; Elaeis melanococca engl. African oil palm; oil palm vok... Lithuanian dictionary (lietuvių žodynas)
See what "Oil palm" is in other dictionaries:- a tree of the palm family. In the western part of Equatorial Africa. They are cultivated in the tropics, extracting so-called palm oil from the pericarp, and palm kernel oil, used for food, from the seeds. * * * OIL PALM OIL PALM,… … encyclopedic Dictionary
See what "Oil palm" is in other dictionaries:- alyvpalmė statusas T sritis vardynas apibrėžtis Arekinių (Arecaceae) šeimos augalų gentis (Elaeis). atitikmenys: lot. Elaeis engl. oil palm vok. Olpalme rus. oil palm lenk. olejowiec ryšiai: susijęs terminas – tikroji alyvpalmė susijęs… … Dekoratyvinių augalų vardynas
Oil palm- (Elaëis Jacq.) a genus of cirrus palms, distinguished by the abundant oil content in the pulp of their fruits and giving the so-called. Palm oil. The trunk of these palms is either recumbent or erect, covered with scales and leaf scars; at the top of the trunk there is a bunch... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron, Absent. Cote d'Ivoire (Coast Ivory) is a small West African country. The flora and fauna of the country are interesting. There is a lot of tropical vegetation in Cote d'Ivoire. In the north and center of the country lies... Buy for 49.9 rubles eBook
Oil palm is the most productive : homeland - Africa, Western Guinea, where wild palm trees are still harvested and oil is obtained in villages using traditional methods.
Guinea oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) gives the most record harvest among all oilseeds - 4–8 tons of oil per hectare per year!
But Guinea oil palm has certain disadvantages. It grows exclusively in the warm, humid equatorial climate between 18° north and south latitude. The areas suitable for oil palm cultivation are very limited.
Oil palm is the most productive palm tree
In addition, this plant does not reproduce vegetatively - a palm tree can be grown only from seeds.
Over the course of 4–6 years, the oil palm grows, forming a rosette of leaves, and only after that it forms a trunk. Maximum fruiting begins 15–20 years after sowing and continues until approximately 70 years old.
Therefore, large oil palm groves often belong to royal families and are passed down through generations.
Since the 15th century palm tree began to be grown in different parts Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In 1870, the oil palm was first brought to Malaysia, used as ornamental plant, decorated the streets of cities, and since 1917 they began to grow it for commercial purposes.
Currently, Malaysia is the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world.
Malaysia and Indonesia mainly specialize in cultivating a hybrid palm tree called Tenera. This variety produces about 4 tons of palm oil, approximately 0.5 tons of palm kernel and 0.6 tons of cake per hectare.
Palm tree "Tenera"
The palm reaches maturity at 3 years and bears fruit for 35 years. She gives the most big harvest oil per hectare compared to other crops.
Palm fruits grow in large clusters, reaching a weight of 10–20 kilograms and numbering about 2 thousand individual fruits. Palm oil is obtained from the pulp that envelops the fruit, in a simple way: The fruits are boiled, crushed and squeezed.
The pulp contains about 49% palm oil, and the kernel contains about 50% palm kernel oil.
Palm "Tenera" begins to bear fruit 30 months after planting, and up to eight years the yield is constantly increasing. Then for five years the yield remains at the same level. From the age of 13, the yield gradually decreases. By the age of 25, the plantation should be renewed.
Oil palm is the most productive, as it produces a crop once every 20 days. That is, every 20 days you need to collect new ripened fruits. Considering that there are few workers, and they go gradually throughout the palm forest, timing is very important so as not to disrupt them, because the palm tree will begin to grow new flowers and fruits only after cutting off the old ones.
And, therefore, 20 days are counted after the harvest. And when there are failures, for example, workers did not come out due to heavy rains or for another reason, then the whole cycle is disrupted. They climb palm trees with the help of “crampons”, cut off the fruits with a chainsaw, and they fall to the ground.
Palm oil is one of the most ancient vegetable oils used by humans for cooking.
Palm oil is already in use more than 5000 years.
Palm oil is extracted from the fruits of the oil palm, namely the pulp of the fruit, which is first squeezed and then boiled. They grow mainly in tropical countries, particularly West Africa.
IN in kind the product is a liquid substance, has an orange-yellow color and has a fairly pleasant aroma and sweet taste. At temperatures below thirty degrees the oil becomes solid , reminiscent of margarine in structure.
Palm oil is the hardest vegetable oil
Palm oil is the only one in the world that is called solid vegetable oil. , similar in composition to animal fats.
Palm oil consists mainly of saturated fatty acids, which differ ability to be stored for a long time, without changing its properties.
The oil contains: huge quantities palmitic acid, but despite this, it also contains other saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, in particular stearic, oleic, arachidic, linoleic, myristic, lauric, etc.
In addition, the oil contains vitamins E, D, K, lecithin, phytosterols, squalene, coenzyme Q10, magnesium, phosphorus, etc. This product quite high in calories, energy value is approx. 900 kcal per 100 g of product.
Today, palm oil is the No. 1 oil in terms of production and consumption in the world.
The main consumers of palm oil are developed countries - Europe, America, Japan.
Why is palm oil so widespread?
Firstly, it is stored for a long time without changing the taste and, accordingly, allows you to produce products with more long periods implementation. Palm oil in a box can be stored at room temperature for 1 year, and it does not change its properties and does not go rancid, unlike sunflower oil.
Secondly, palm oil is very cheap since the crop is harvested almost every day.
And thirdly, This oil can be hydrogenated, during which it changes from a liquid to a solid state. The resulting mass can be added to anything - it is cheap (for example, compared to milk fat) and convenient. And these qualities, of course, were immediately appreciated by product manufacturers.
Palm oil - both solid and liquid
Palm oil is divided into technical and food - solid and liquid, groups- white, yellow, red palm oils.
Elite grade - red palm oil
Red palm oils are the “cream” of palm oil, “Elite”. Next, industrial oil is squeezed out - for mass production of products (Lushin, Doshirak, Chips, etc.), and only then - low-grade industrial oil.
Oil is also extracted from palm seeds . It's called palm kernel , it is lighter than palm and resembles coconut. There are other types of palm oil.
In the culinary field, palm oil The level of use can be compared with coconut oil. Confectioners unanimously claim that this product is simply irreplaceable in the production of their products, especially those intended for long-term storage.
It is used in the production of margarine and other substitutes for natural butter, and is an ingredient in the production of condensed milk, crackers, crackers, chocolate, cheese, bread, ice cream, cakes, pastries, confectionery, and many other products.
Read about the elite red palm oil “Zlata Palma” Exclusive
And for those who have read this article - surprise!
Oilseed squirrel (Protoxerus strangeri)
This squirrel received this name due to the fact that its main gastronomic predilection is oil palm fruits.
Often the abdomen of this animal is colored with the orange juice of palm fruits.
The oil palm grows only in equatorial latitudes, and is found there most valuable culture. But we also deal with this exotic plant often.
Like many other palms, oil palm begins to grow without a trunk; for the first 4-5 years it produces only long, showy leaves. But in 5-6 years a trunk is formed, and it gradually raises a bunch of leaves to a height of up to 30 meters. So the natives are there to collect valuable fruits, they used ladders, ropes, and it was even dangerous. On plantations, palm trees, as a rule, do not grow higher than 15 meters and do not live to their natural old age. The plant itself can live up to a hundred years, but on plantations, after the peak of fruiting, the old palm tree is replaced with a new one. The palms are very fruitful and produce large drupes of fruit in large clusters. Each bunch can weigh up to 50 kilograms, and one person collects more than a hundred of these bunches a day.
This was appreciated by industrialists in many countries. If earlier the oil palm served only local residents, now its valuable fruits are useful all over the world. In the homeland of the palm tree, in Liberia and the Congo, it is completely irreplaceable. Livestock farming there is risky due to the spread of , and oil palm is the main source of fat. In Africa, it is believed that palm oil has been mined for a long time: at the bottom of one of the ancient vessels found by archaeologists, the remains of that same oil palm fat were found. And the first written evidence of oil palm and its oil date back to the 15th century.
Precious and at the same time inexpensive oil palm clusters are used without residue. The bright orange or rust-colored fruits produce two types of oil: palm and palm kernel. The first is extracted from the pulp, the second from the seed. Locals eat palm oil fresh, but after standing for a while, it becomes unpleasant in taste. But it is excellent for lubricating mechanisms, including automobile lubricant, and is used for making candles and soap. Palm kernel oil has become a more valuable food product. One has only to read the labels, and it turns out that candies, ice cream, and margarines contain it.
Palm wine is also prepared from the fruits of the oil palm; its properties are similar to wine. coconut tree. And the cake from fruits and seeds that have already been pressed for oil is still nutritious - it is used as food for ungulates.
Although the birthplace of the oil palm - West Africa, it is cultivated along the entire equator, and the largest plantations are planted in Malaysia. Due to the fact that oil palm does not grow quickly, it is sometimes even grown at home - the feathery leaves are very decorative. The African oil palm has a relative, the American oil palm. It also gives a lot of oil, but it grows while lying down. Its trunk is attached to the ground by numerous root shoots, and the leaves rise up only 2-3 meters.