12/4/06 ( The New York Times)  - IT all began simply enough, with the food industry exploring palm oil as an alternative to trans fat.

Now, Paul Newman is angry, orangutans are dying and sandwich cookies may never be the same.

The protagonist, if a story about dietary fat can have one, is Nell Newman, daughter of the actor Paul Newman. In 1993, she talked her father into starting a small organic line as part of his food company, Newman's Own, whose profits are funneled to charities. She did it by cooking him a Thanksgiving dinner using only organic ingredients.

Like other companies that mass-produce foods like cookies and crackers, Newman's Own Organics wanted to find a way to avoid using trans fat, an artificially created fatty acid found in what many home cooks call shortening.

Also known as partially hydrogenated oil, trans fat is considered the worst fat in the American diet. Not only does it raise bad cholesterol levels, it is also believed to reduce good cholesterol. The Agriculture Department's 2005 Dietary Guidelines suggest eating as little of it as possible, and this year the federal government forced food companies to include trans fat amounts on food labels.

Newman's Own Organics uses palm fruit oil, a dietary fat that carries its own controversy. The fruit of a palm tree is about the size of a large plum, and the flesh is pressed into an oil that is about 50 percent saturated.

The palm kernel is also used for oil, which is extracted with a chemical process. It has a much higher saturated fat content, but not quite as high as coconut oil, which is almost completely saturated.

Too much saturated fat, for people who haven't listened to their doctors lately, can lead to heart disease. Which is partly why the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group, has waged a campaign against palm oil.

The group's executive director, Michael Jacobson, said the concern is that food processors will replace partially hydrogenated oil with palm oil, a fat that is not as bad but still contributes to heart disease.

So far, the amount of palm oil in America's food supply is trivial compared to the amount of soy and canola oil.

"I want to keep it that way," Mr. Jacobson said. But the amount of palm oil the United States is importing from Southeast Asia, where most of it comes from, continues to grow. Imports jumped to 405,000 metric tons in 2005 from 195,000 in 2003, statistics from the U.S.D.A. Foreign Agriculture Service show.

Here's where the orangutans come in. Last summer, the Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a report called Cruel Oil. In it, the group said that crucial tracts of tropical rainforest were being destroyed and turned into palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, which account for more than 80 percent of the production of the world's palm oil. Orangutans live only in Sumatra and Borneo, and the campaign said they and other endangered animals, including tigers and rhinoceroses, were in danger of "dying for a cookie."

Here's where Paul Newman comes in. Mr. Jacobson and the report's other authors accuse Mr. Newman of "bragging" on his labels for cookies and microwave popcorn that palm oil is free of trans fat and is less saturated than palm kernel oil.

"These statements are literally true, but mislead people into thinking that palm oil is positively healthy," the report said. "Palm oil is not a health food."

For Ms. Newman, who contributes a large amount of time and money to sustainable farming and other environmental causes, the move against her family company seemed unfair. Her father was even angrier.

"It really upset Pops," said Ms. Newman. He became obsessed with proving that the form of palm oil the company uses is a healthier alternative to trans fats and that Newman's Own Organics isn't misleading its customers.

The company uses palm oil from trees grown organically in Colombia, which has no orangutans, said Neil Blomquist, former chief executive officer and president of Spectrum Organic Products, which sells Newman's Own its palm oil. The company's oil is harvested with practices that exceed principles set forth in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a group whose members include growers, processors and environmentalists, Mr. Blomquist said.