This book covers all aspects of the Palm Oil industry, from the way in which deforestation creates the plantations to the works who struggle to make ends meet even while companies make record profits, to the health crisis that consuming Palm Oil can produce. Wide ranging in scope I felt that Ms Zuckerman paints a very vivid picture of the rise and proliferation of an item that many consumers do not give a lot of thought to but is in pretty much in most products. Very well written and fast-paced.

This book was a great read but a little dry. If you are interested in research and a deep dive into the Palm Oil industry this book is definitely for you, just not a ton of added color if you are interested in an overview.

This is not a book that offers solutions to an existing problem. If that is something that one might expect going into this, they will be disappointed. It was an offhand comment at a cousin's place a few years ago that had me keeping an ear on the ground for Palm oil and its pervasive presence in everything that we consume (processed things) - it was one of those numerous things that I was completely unaware of before that point. I, therefore, picked this up because it seemed to promise a history of things that came to be as convoluted as they are now. This is definitely something that it delivered for me.
I have since recommended this to people with even the slight tendency to read books of this ilk. I guess, with my review and this post, I am trying to do just that with a broader audience.
The author addresses the roots of the palm oil trade, from when it was once seen as an inferior item being used by people less 'civilized' to the role it now plays all over the world. It was only through hints I saw online and read about that I had previously abandoned my otherwise favourite Nutella and moved on to making my own hazelnut spread when I felt like it. I did not encounter a chapter on Nutella but did find the basis for where the news stemmed from.
The author did a great job addressing the position of countries reliant on this trade on the world order totem pole and what it would mean for them to 'handle' things and set the balance right. It is a book long in the making, with the author's personal travels to central locations to the narrative over many years being described to hold the history together.
It was slow in parts but shocked me and informed me in equal measure. It is not surprising since the two emotions seem to be going hand in hand whenever I pick up a book like this. The numbers are devastating, and even the sustainable palm efforts are addressed in the book.
I cannot say much more about this because it is a collection of facts, and I think these are some of those facts that everyone should know so that they make an informed decision about their purchases/consumption. I must admit I liked the way the information was laid out to signify the perplexing situation the hardworking workers at the plantation find themselves in. There is no easy fix, but I sincerely hope the people working on this might come up with even a half-decent one!
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience of the book and my previous interest in the topic discussed.

well written history of palm oil with each chapter focused on either the (neo) colonialist history or the specific issues that palm oil creates. Zuckerman is a journalist so this is more than a parade of facts but rather a reporting from the ground as she walks through palm oil desecrated land. I knew palm oil wasn't great but now I know how much I'd like to actively avoid it as I have now been convinced of how much of a driver of climate change it is! Definitely a good primer on palm oil!

This is an excellent, comprehensive piece of reporting on one of the world's biggest problems: palm oil. Many environmentally-conscious consumers know about this evil crop, including how it has led to or been the cause of:
• massive (often illegal) deforestation in the world's most carbon-rich and biodiverse places,
• full or near extinction of hundreds of species that depend on these deforested habitats,
• huge releases of the CO2 that these high carbon stock rainforests capture and sequester, thus being a significant driver of climate change,
• eradication, exploitation, and/or displacement of indigenous peoples,
• despicable human rights violations from child labor to modern-day slavery to toxic agrochemical exposure,
• and many negative health outcomes including obesity and heart disease in countries like India and Mexico that sell processed foods loaded with the stuff.

So with all of these amazing things about palm oil easily accessible from a quick Google search, to borrow a phrase from John Oliver, why is it still a thing? Zuckerman explains why in many reasons, not least of which is the fact that our world - from Indian supermarkets to your own home - is dependent on and addicted to palm oil. You'll be hard pressed to find a home, even one of the most eco-conscious, free of the substance in one form or another, from Palmolive to L'Oreal cosmetics to Nutella to fried and packaged foods.

Zuckerman traces the history of palm oil, from when it was a nutritious and healthful Bahian food to when it entered the European commodity trade and led to many human rights abuses in its labor-intensive sourcing to when Europeans started massively clearing tropical rainforests and starting plantations of their own (only in the early 19th century). You'll note characters (really, villains) whose names are still around today: William Lever of Unilever fame, who put the stuff in his soap, and Pietro Ferrero of Nutella fame, who started using palm oil to give Nutella that creaminess that it's known for. They were not good guys in the race to own the palm oil supply chain.

Each chapter in this book dives deep into the issues I bulleted above, with Zuckerman going on-the-ground as much as possible to get firsthand accounts from workers, smallholder farmers, poachers (yes, poachers!), environmental activists, palm oil barons, government officials, etc. She travels to remote areas in these (formerly) biodiversity zones and sees the destruction that industrial-scale palm oil has wreaked on the most beautiful and sacred parts of the world. It's no secret that trying to investigate and uncover bad things about the palm oil industry puts a target on your back - palm oil is money, and there's a LOT of it in this industry - so I applaud Zuckerman's real reporting efforts, rather than just doing all her research from the desktop.

I work in the agriculture industry, and I thought I knew a decent amount about the horrors of industrial agriculture, especially for commodities like palm oil, cattle, rubber, soy, etc. that have and continue to cause massive deforestation. But this taught me so much that I didn't know in a relatively short book - including and especially all of the health and nutrition concerns related to palm oil, and how they are tied to socioeconomic disadvantage, both on a personal and geographical scale.

Although Zuckerman tries to end the book on some hopeful notes - promising partnerships and agreements, NGO watchdog groups that monitor for deforestation in almost real time, and our capacity to change what we thought would never change - you are still left with a sense of dread at the scale, intensity, difficulty to control, and most importantly, money behind this problem. I truly hope things will change, especially as the knowledge we have about this industry grows. The first step, at least, is consumer awareness.

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley!

I really wanted to love this book, and it did get much better in the second half, but the lengthy history at the beginning killed me and I had to plod through it. I really wanted to understand palm oil today, and would have preferred those sections to lead the book, but instead got random facts about 19th century merchants. The book really picked up in the second half.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC copy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Definitely an interesting read. Not the most upbeat of books, but a very important read for everyone. I found it a little "dry" in places, but the author did well in presenting us with a lot of facts and information to chew on. I'll admit, how prevalent the use of palm oil actually is surprised me.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

What an interesting and eye-opening read. I knew that Palm Oil was an ecological problem and pervasive in our foods and other frequently used goods but I didn't know the true extent of the global problem that it is. This book would be a great resource to show the effects of the palm oil industry on our planet.

This is an eye opener of a book, I knew some bits about palm oil, but this blew my mind.

A must read.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

It's such a well-written book and the premise also sounds very promising. It sounds a bit sad but I gained more knowledge more than I thought. It's a great book to confirm to us, the readers, about all things that we're not aware of. The premise sounds pretty decent too. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

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Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade: oil-palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations.

How is it possible that in 21. century there is a commodity that is so harmful and yet so ubiquitous? Palm oil is destructive to the natural environment (mostly peat swamps and rain forests and their biodiversity), to the people who produce it (often as virtual slaves, breathing and touching poisonous chemicals) and live nearby (losing their homes and livelihoods), and finally to the consumers (who often unknowingly ingest it in copious amounts, detrimental to their health). Who benefits? A handful of unscrupulous businessmen and corrupt officials.

It is a pretty well written and interesting, but above all - important book. It investigates all of this and more, providing detailed and colorful picture of the oil palm business from colonial history to the present day, and revealing many ugly truths that we, global consumers, don't like to think about.

Regarding the critics, I agree that the problem with “eco-colonialism” is real - I think that the expectations of the West, where all old forests were cleared long ago and many native species were led to extinction, towards the developing countries are often hypocritical and unfair, as the author acknowledged in the epilogue. Nonetheless, it is true that something has to be done for the sake of both local communities and the global environment. I am not sure activism is a proper solution but it surely helps to build awareness.

Thanks to the publisher, The New Press, and NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.

This book was a little depressing but also very informative. A good reminder of why consumers need to opt for palm oil-free products on store shelves and why we have to stop voting politicians into office that don't believe the science behind climate change. The insights the author offered in her epilogue, written during the Covid-19 pandemic was my favourite part of the book. I found that up until then there hadn't been much emotion infused in the chapters. Overall I found it to be a little dry but I still think it's an important read for anyone wanting to learn about the environmental destruction taking place in some very important ecological regions on earth.

Planet Palm is one of those books which rips an important ingredient of our food and energy supply. It does a pretty good job describing the challenges that come with the significant increase of the supply side, including indentured labor (without using that term) or mono culture and deforestation. It is one of those books we may have read about Cobalt mines in our electric cars, shrimp sourcing in Bangladesh or the Amazon deforestation to satisfy our beef cravings.

While it is well written, it does not address the demand side: Why is it that we are using Palm Oil above anything else? The book describes some of the initiatives that have been taken to label palm oil and mark sustainability as we know if from other labels such as fair trade. But since it is mostly an ingredient, the packaging would not suffice to provide equal space for all questionable ingredients in products like Nutella.

It is well written, and if you are professionally active in the food supply chain, you may want to consider picking this one up. For the rest of us, it is just one of those books that makes you feel more miserable when you look at your nutrition and makes you question what is left to eat.

Eye Opening, Yet Problematic Itself. This is a well documented work - roughly 30% of the text was bibliography, even if much of it wasn't actually referenced in the text of the advance reader copy I read. (Perhaps that will be corrected before actual publication, so if you're reading a fully published version circa June 2021 or later, please comment and let me know. :D) It does a tremendous job of showing the development of palm oil from regional subsistence level agriculture to today's modern arguably Big Palm level industry, and how it spread from regional staple to in seemingly every home in the "developed" world, at minimum. It is here that the book is truly eye opening, and truly shows some areas that perhaps still need some work.

HOWEVER, the book also often lauds communists and eco-terrorists, among other less than savory characters, for the "efforts" to "combat" this scourge - and this is something that is both pervasive throughout the text and a bit heavy handed, particularly when praising a team of Greenpeace pirates who tried to illegally board a cargo ship a few years ago.

Still, even with the aforementioned pervasive praise of people who arguably truly shouldn't be, the fact that the text does such a solid job of explaining the various issues and histories at hand alone merits its consideration. Recommended.