Palm oil is a butter substitute. Every baked product at the grocery store that used to be made with butter is now made with palm oil, because it is cheaper. Palm oil is made up of long highly-saturated fatty acids that cause it to be solid at room temperature, giving it physical properties very similar to butter, making it suitable as a substitute. However saturated fatty acids are bad for your health. Butter is also saturated fat and is also somewhat bad, but palm oil is much worse because the varieties of fatty acids it contains are much different from animal fat fatty acids and the human body metabolizes them differently, so they have a much higher impact. Similar physical properties but worse health properties!
It is nearly impossible to find frozen baked goods that are still made with butter. This pie claims to be made with healthy ingredients, and specifically touts its butter content, but it conveniently omits mentioning palm oil entirely. Since palm oil appears first on the ingredients list before butter, that means there is more of it. Possibly almost the entire “butter-like” fraction of the pie consists of palm oil.
This pie alone contains 400% daily value saturated fat, which is terrible for long-term health. I love apple pies and I was planning to eat this pie as my sole food over the course of 2 days for my One-Meal-A-Day (OMAD), but I’m not willing to risk eating palm oil. Thanks for nothing for getting my hopes up, pie box!
- traditional wholesome German ingredients like palm oil
- palm oil - just the way grandma used to make at home
- contains memories of butter
I’m sure someone below will mention how palm oil is also bad for the environment and bad for the farmers and bad for the economy. I will only be answering questions about the film Rampart.
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nothing says handmade and premium more than an ai generated description
Worried about health. Planned to eat nothing but pie for 2 days.
Wat?
I’m pretty skeptical that palm oil is more unhealthy than butter. The farming practices surrounding it’s production are not wholesome sure. But it tastes good and cost less than butter.
Who eats pie thinking it’s healthy?
What are you talking about? This is just like grandma used to make it! With a heaping glob of palm oil scooped out by her palm, measured by eye yet always coming out the same constant taste.
Too bad after the 18th hear attack, poor me maw is in heaven now but she sure did love her palm oil.
For all those decrying the ethics of palm oil - you are aware of the yields per hectare of the various plant oils, right?
- Soybean: 0.47 ton oil/ha/year
- Sunflower: 0.78 ton oil/ha/year
- Rapeseed: 0.74 ton oil/ha/year
- Palm Oil: 3.36 tons oil/ha/year
Would anybody like to suggest how to switch away from palm oils without deforesting what remains of the Amazon?
Do butter.
Can’t tell if you’re making a pun or being serious :)
In case you’re being serious, I’m pretty sure we’d need magnitudes more land and methane emissions for butter.
The cow is not killed when butter is harvested. But they do need to be fed, so I’m not sure about that.
The grass and/or grain the cow eats does though.
Animals take up a ton more space than do plants. I’m sure you’ve heard all the arguments at some point for moving away from meat. I’m not going to rehash them (especially since I’m a meat eater), but it’s just a question of how many magnitudes more land cows would use, not if they would use more land.
I was being serious; figure up the tons per hectare per year of butter production.
Google says 250kg per hectare, So about 6% of palm oil productivity. About 15x the land usage.
The difference is the others don’t require a tropical environment to grow. So you can grow them without any deforestation.
Globally, palm oil occupies approximately 19 million hectares (about 47 million acres) of land.
Despite supplying over one-third of the world’s vegetable oil, this footprint is remarkably small—using less than 10% of the total land allocated to all oil-producing crops worldwide.
Where are you suggesting to find another 500 million acres of land, a tad more than the size of Alaska, without environmental impact?
Ooh, what if we use Alaska?
The obvious answer is some of the Land used to grow soybeans and corn for animal feed.
By that logic though, imagine how much land we could reclaim for other purposes (including reforestation) if we shifted more existing farmland towards palm oil.
That’s not where palms grow.
True. So reforest the land instead.
so we’ve gotten a shitton better at aero- and hydroponics. can we grow the right palm tree in a greenhouse yet?
i’m in the california bay area so palm trees are more of a wealth indicator than a “hey they grow here” thing. but they’re everywhere because people want to signal that they’re wealthy, even if they aren’t.
That will never be able to compete on price with clear cut rainforest land and trained primates doing the picking.
we make them. with environmental impact because you can’t exist without it, but we do what we can to minimize it yes. We got a shitton of land out in texas that is being used as oilfields. get some environmental remediation out there first to make it suitable for farmland, use some of the grassy areas as well (not all we need the grassy areas), and there’s a good quarter of that chunk at least.
and I’d bump that up to like 650million acres, because we’re not using prime farmland to get this oil. yields will probably be less.
but like, the room to grow this is there. i drive by sunflower fields (that are either for oil or eating) fairly regularly.
Ok. Texas is 170M acres. We’ve allocated Texas, that’s 30% of what we need. Which other US states can we sacrifice? :)
I’m liking this plan.
i don’t think missouri or mississippi would mind if we sacrificed them. but we’re going to need 10 million acres from a few states each in europe to make this work i think.
Aren’t some of those plants grown in plains? I don’t think the yield per hectare is the whole story. Palm oil is tropical, leading to deforestation, but at least some of the others you listed are not.
Globally, palm oil occupies approximately 19 million hectares (about 47 million acres) of land.
Despite supplying over one-third of the world’s vegetable oil, this footprint is remarkably small—using less than 10% of the total land allocated to all oil-producing crops worldwide.
Where are you suggesting to find another 500 million acres of land, a tad more than the size of Alaska, without environmental impact?
Why are you moving the goalposts? In your first post the goal was without further deforestation of rainforests, but in your reply, you changed the goal to without environmental impact. As long as global population growth is a thing, the former is possible, the latter not so much.
I’ll admit I’m not terribly interested in this topic. I only replied to your comment (at the same time as another commenter making a similar argument) because you come off as a shill for palm oil, which is odd.
I’m not trying to write a thesis and pick exact words here. Let me move the goalposts back.
Where do you suggest to find 500M acres without deforesting something and driving a few more species extinct?
Just because a random Internet stranger doesn’t know a better solution off the top of their head, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem to be clearly seen.
I’m not arguing there isn’t a problem, I’m pointing out the stupidity in advocating for an even worse solution. No, I don’t have the answer either.
It still says “butter” in the ingredients so they’re not lying.
Remember that laws are pedantic, and if there isn’t some strict regulation on how much % of something must have butter in order to legally be described as “made with butter”, then adding a teaspoon of butter to the entire product and substituting the rest with palm oil is still technically “made with butter”.
Yeah but there’s more of it than butter.
They’re not going to list all the ingredients on the advertisement on the outside of the box.
That’s what the ingredients list is for.
I know. But it’s still butter. So technically they still made it with butter. They never made any promises on the box of how much butter there’d be.
The bad thing about palm oil isn’t how unhealthy it is (because what it is replacing isn’t healthy either); the bad thing is that palm farmers have destroyed many thousands of square miles of rain forest. When you fly from Singapore to Jakarta, virtually all rain forest you used to fly over is now palm. It’s an unmitigated environmental disaster.
Do you have an alternative to suggest that’s less ecologically damaging? I keep hearing complaints about palm oil but I’ve never heard an alternative suggestion that doesn’t involve even more land use.
I think the problem is that all the global “fat” supply has gone into palm oil since it’s low cost and tastes nice, so the scale of it’s production make the problem worse…
so even if the alternatives are worse on paper, splitting the production between them could mitigate the damage maybe?
btw I found this quite comprehensive study
splitting the production between them could mitigate the damage maybe?
Moving half of current palm oil usage to other oils would require about 250M acres of land. Anybody got a spare country or two lying around?
Anyway, production is already split. As I mentioned in another comment, palm oil currently accounts for about 40% of plant oils, while using less than 10% of the land.
You could not eat food with palm oil in it. There’s a suggestion.
Nothing I eat has palm oil in it. I don’t specifically avoid it, but I do avoid processed foods generally, and palm oil is only in processed food.
Avoiding processed foods is certainly a valid option, though not one I see gaining popularity anytime soon.
However, the average detractor isn’t suggesting sweeping diet changes, they’re suggesting buying products using other plant oils, as if that wouldn’t cause even more deforestation if everybody did it.
You’re right, but if we used butter instead, the necessary cows would surely require yet more space.
Its replacement depends on the product you’re trying to make. Like, they could not remove the cocoa butter from chocolate, for example.
Which reminds me, someone gave me a bunch of chocolate bars with a large “rainforest alliance” logo on it that had palm oil as the second ingredient. They’re inedible.
If only vegetable oils existed…
You mean like palm oil?
Different use cases.
Fats that are solid ( or at least not kept liquid) are not directly comparable to oils. They fulfill a different function in baked goods. In particular, pie crust with vegetable oil would fail totally. It wouldn’t hold up.
Mind you, if you don’t object to hydrogenated oils, they can do the job. Yay margarine? But you can’t just dump 10 grams of canola into your biscuits and expect the results to look, taste, or feel like a biscuit. You’d get something, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Palm oil doesn’t tase good at all so you can just as well use margarine made from sunflower or canola oil.
It’s pretty tasteless overall.
And when it comes right down to it, hydrogenated oils are their own nightmare. There’s really no perfect choices for every person in every situation.
Like, lard and tallow work even better than butter in some applications, including some desserts. But then you run into the health side of things and vegetarians aren’t going to use them.
I personally don’t like palm oil either. I find it unpleasant for mouth feel. I’m just saying that it fills a role that other things don’t, and does it in a way that’s a different set of problems.
It’s not a choice between palm oil or butter. You can create a vegan pie easily. Yummie yummie.
Isn’t palm oil vegan?
It depends on your definition of veganism. There is no animal product in it, but to use it in the quantities we do requires the destruction of a lot of habitat that certain animals require to survive.
Yeah, people constantly confuse veganism for a diet.
Nope, it contains bits and pieces of orangutans.
That doesn’t sound right. But I don’t know enough about orangutans to dispute it.
Since veganism is mainly about ethicality, i’d guess not.
I had an argument about palm oil with a vegan who said that I was against it because I supported Big Dairy…
ethicality
Only when it comes to animals. You can be an almond milk drinking vegan despite the amount of water necessary to make an almond. You can be a palm oil vegan despite the amount of habitation destruction necessary for palm oil to be economically viable.
Only when it comes to animals.
Like, killing them / driving them away, for a cocoa plantage?
i think so since it comes from a tree
Good find, it’s shady as fuck they healthy-wash the processed food. But your post is also interesting for a second reason- you care about eating healthy and do some specific diet, and yet you plan to live on frozen apple pie, whose nutritional value, traditional or not, is practically just sugar with fat? Unexpected choice for a conscious diet.
Honestly, that part about eating nothing but pie for two days makes me feel like this is a
moodmild but elaborate troll.I hate the amount of time it takes to cook and eat things every day. 😆 The microwavable frozen foods section would have been my first choice, there is usually enough selection to find something suitable, but the dollars-per-calorie cost is way too high, on order of $20-$30 per day. This pie is $15 and has enough calories for 2 days and takes zero work. Sugar and fat are already two of the three main ingredients I need. Also protein, but the wheat in the crust has some. Apples are a fruit, they have vitamins and shit. Looks good to me!
Sugar and fat are already two of the three main ingredients I need
I just want to point out that apple pie is a dessert, not a dietary staple. Not shaming you for enjoying an occasional treat, I do more than my share and we definitely need to find things that give us joy in this world… But sugar is not necessary, like at all. It has zero recommended percentage on labels because humans don’t require it for complete nutrition.
apple crumble or apple oatmeal? an apple oatmeal bowl would take less than ten mins to make, an apple crumble longer but then you …could eat half the pan like you want to. .
you can usually only have have 2/3: convenience, budget, quality. Pick two. A homemade apple oatmeal bowl might hit all three markers though.
what I would do, buy: A container of quick oats, a bag of apples, cinnamon, cane sugar… uh… Yeah. In a microwave bowl pour a tablespoon of sugar (or less or more whatever, its early), a shake of cinnamon, cut an apple (skin on for fiber) in to cubes right in your hand or on a small plate/cutting board, add it to the bowl, place about a cup of the quick oats on top, fill with water (maybe half a cup? maybe 3/4 cup? or read the oat box find out how much ur to use, its actually been a while since ive made oatmeal and I like mine watery so read the package tbh), Stir, then microwave it for like, two mins and eat the shit.
No it wont be fucking rock your socks off, but its quick easy food that didt cost much. could also just buy regular oats and make this the same, and stick it in the fridge for meal prepped over night oats.
Sounds like products like huel and soylent are just for you! Would be healthier probably.
I’d love these! I’m the target audience but they cost even more per calorie than microwaveable frozen meals do.
You seen very focused on the “cost per calorie” measure. Have you never heard the phrase “empty calories”?
You misunderstand the idea of cost per calorie. The expectation is that you start with something nutritionally-complete, like these soylents, the frozen rice+vegs+chicken dinners, or even the frozen apple pies (how ever nonconventional these may be), or if that is not possible then a combination of several foods in a ratio that makes them nutritionally complete, and then scale up to hit that 1500cals/day target. A single item or known ratio of items so I don’t have to think about this ever again. If I didn’t care about nutrition I’d just be chugging high fructose corn syrup (<$1/day) which you never saw me say. My daily meal ends up being rice and beans drenched in olive oil with some raw vegetables-of-the-day on the side, since I can’t afford the soylents.
This should be illegal.
It is illegal in certain parts of the world.
It could be argued that is, but that company is small enough they can get away with it. The larger the food company is the more conservative they tend to be with callouts like that on pack. Lawyers would typically only pursue claims against mega food companies, and even then it would be a class action where everyone gets $5 or some shit
In the netherlands we have an award for the most misleading commercial/advertisement/packaging.
That’s exactly why I don’t trust their phones. /s
Palm oil is also bad for farmers, the environment, and the economy
Also this company is owned by the dickhead maga mayor in my state that we struggle against constantly. So, fascist pies.
Sorry, genuinely. This is a shitty thing to learn post purchase
Thankfully I always check ingredients before purchase. Haven’t had my fill of apple pie in months. 😭
this company is owned by the dickhead maga mayor in my state
The plot thickens!
They only way to get good actual butter pies of any kind these days is to make it yourself, for better or worse.
Palm oil can be bad for deforestation, but so is cattle farming (most forest clearing is for cattle grazing or cattle feed). There is certification around to source palm oil from outside recently cleared forests. In general, plant based diets will almost always beat animal products by a very significant margin.
German here and I can say I’m turning around half the cartons in the supermarket and check for palm oil. I’ll try to buy alternatives. Though it’s really hard. It’s either price increase, shrinkflation or cheaper ingredients. Oftentimes a combination of those.
In case of the Apple Pie: Channel the German grandma inside of you and bake it yourself. It’s not too hard. Takes an hour or so, though.
The smell and the taste of self made apple pie with simply butter, flour, sugar and apples is unbeatable. Don’t buy comfort “foods” like this - learn to make them yourself.
Apple crumble with vanilla ice is very nice as well.
Some people don’t have ovens.
Then buying this frozen pie from OP would not work for them either.
Also, palm oil means child labor
As a Malaysian, one of the world’s leading exporters of palm oil, no it fucking doesn’t. Source ethical if that’s a concern, just like chocolate or coffee or tea, but don’t tar the entire industry with the same brush.
Maybe not anymore because Customs and Border Protection banned one of your biggest palm oil producers from the U.S market and then lifted it after no longer finding forced labor. But if I have to dig in to the supplier I see palm oil in the ingredients, it’s not a good look to me.
There’s a big difference between migrant labour and child labour…
That “handmade touch” claim sounds like BS too. wtf does “hand-crisped crust” mean? and something tells me “filled by hand” just means that a human hand pushed a button. “This pie is meticulously crafted” LOLZ thanks, Michaelangelo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t2IkfuWTJ8
Hand filled…
