When consumed as part of a balanced diet, palm oil is no more harmful than other edible oils. It has nearly equal proportions of saturated and unsaturated fats and is rich in antioxidants.
In April, Indian buyers opted to cancel large amounts of palm oil purchases for the first time in many years and industry was expecting May imports could fall to 700,000 tonnes.
Survey by LocalCircles also found that 17% were cutting discretionary spending to afford the oil and 1 in 2 households are dipping into savings to buy it.
At 3-day meet in Bhopal, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh slammed palm oil for being ‘unhealthy’, not ‘atmanirbhar’ & overusing water. It urged govt to promote local oil seeds, demanded MSP panel.
Prices of palm oil are up 15% this year to a record, while rival soybean oil has jumped 12%, putting a strain on India, the top buyer of palm, soybean and sunflower oils.
Ukraine is India's biggest supplier of sunflower oil. Any escalation in Russia-Ukraine tension is likely to hit edible oil prices in the country as 70% of its requirement is imported.
According to Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, diverting land from rice & wheat production in Punjab, Haryana can increase production of edible oil in India by 25 lakh tonnes.
India is witnessing record-high inflation in edible oil prices. Food Secretary says country can produce up to 18-19 lakh tonnes of rice bran oil, up from current 11 LT.
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
Even food-literate people consume alcohol, saturated fat, sugar, and smoke marijuana/tobacco.