I was recently recommended a brand of beauty products, Green People, because not only are they “cruelty free” and use natural ingredients, they are 100% vegetarian and even have a vegan range. Brilliant, right? Well, as I was having a look at the ingredients used in some of their products, I noticed that one ingredient was palm oil. What?! The production of Palm oil leads to massive destruction of the rainforest, and as it’s mostly grown in Indonesia, Malaysia and Borneo, this means that the natural habitat of the endangered Orangutan, along with hundreds of other species, is being destroyed. So how is that animal-friendly, you ask?
Being the busybody that I am, I emailed Green People to see if their Palm oil is ethically sourced, as the website claims all of its ingredients are. Thankfully, they came back with the right answer;-
“The palm oil used in Green People products is from certified organic sources in countries that do not have native orang-utans such as the Philippines and Ecuador. It is a condition of organic certification that the raw materials come from trees that are grown on long-established plantations which are managed in a sustainable way to ensure that native fauna and flora are preserved. It is also a condition of achieving organic certification that the growth and production of crops does not have an adverse effect on the environment either on a local or global scale, and agricultural schemes that involve deforestation are specifically excluded from all organic certification schemes.”
Phew! Right? So it is possible to get beauty products that are completely animal friendly!
However, this did get me thinking. Now I won’t bore you with all the reasons I became a vegetarian, but the treatment and well-being of animals was the main factor in my conversion. So naturally I decided to give up eating meat, and instead rely heavily on soya products for my dietary protein. And soya is vegan so that’s cool, right? Well, unfortunately soya plantations, like palm oil, have led to the obliteration of thousands of acres of Rainforest and the natural habitat of a huge variety of the animals that I care so much about. Plus the poor souls that work some of these plantations are basically slaves, so it’s hardly ethical, is it?! There are of course other natural sources of protein, but as a vegetarian or vegan it can be really hard to avoid soybeans as an ingredient, and sadly I have no clue if the biggest producers of soya based products source their ingredients ethically or not.
BUT, I have found out that of the 39million tons of soya that is imported into Europe every year, 90% is used for animal feed. And most of that is destined for cows, pigs and sheep that are bred for meat. Plus veggies eating tofu or soya burgers are at least getting the dietary protein directly from the source, whereas it takes 8-16lbs of soybeans to produce 1lb of beef which is incredibly inefficient!
So, in conclusion, the production of soybeans isn’t particularly ethical, but the biggest demand is actually due to meat eaters. So at least it takes some of the pressure off of us veggies! But if you are at all concerned, you can try and find some of your protein from other sources, as less demand will mean a lower production rate and less rainforest destruction. That being said, I really don’t think much will change unless a larger chunk of the population stop eating meat.
By the way, if you want to buy any of the natural and animal friendly products from Green People, you can find them all at greenpeople.co.uk
LPW xo
Little Pixie Wild 