Council: Daudigny’s Proposal Shows Ignorance About Palm Oil
14/11/2012 (The Star) - The Malaysian Palm Oil Council has slammed a French legislature’s proposal to increase tax on palm oil by 300%.
French Senator Yves Daudig- ny recently proposed the increase in the tax, dubbed “Nutella Tax” as palm oil is one of the main ingre-dients in the chocolate hazel- nut spread, on claims that “palm oil is unhealthy and that Malaysia does not respect the environ-ment”.
“The proposal is based on inaccurate claims,” council chief executive officer Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron. “Palm oil is a healthy, natural and important product which 240,000 small farmers in Malaysia are proud to produce.
“Contrary to Senator Daudigny’s comments, every nutritional and food expert concludes that palm oil is in fact free of dangerous trans fats, free of genetically modified organisms and contains valuable vitamins,” said Yusof.
He also said it was important to assess content of saturated fat in palm oil in relation to the total fats consumed by the French population.
“The majority of saturated fats consumed in France comes from animal sources – meat, milk, cheese and butter – not from palm oil.
“The Senator’s proposal to deny palm oil its rightful place in food manufacturing will not only be an economic and functional opportunity loss to the industry, but also to the French people if they involuntarily consume worse alternatives such as hydrogenated (high trans fat) sunflower or rapeseed oil,” said Yusof.
He said food like cheese had 30% animal fat content and the French were known to consume 24kg of cheese per capita, which translates to 8kg of saturated animal fats.
With the total animal saturated fats from milk, meat, cheese and butter consumed by a person per year amounting to 34.4kg, saturated fat in palm oil only amounted to 2kg to the average French.
Yusof also pointed out that Malaysia’s track record on efficient land use and conservation was far more superior than that of France’s , with 50% of Malaysian land committed to forest cover compared to only 28% in France.
“The action taken by Daudigny – to propose onerous new burdens on palm oil producers – is irresponsible, badly-informed and ignores the primary source of saturated fats in the French diet.
“We call upon the French government to reject the proposal,” said Yusof. “It is part of an aggressive and unprovoked attack against palm oil.”