As one of the co-founders of Whole Earth Foods (though no longer an owner of the company), I feel compelled to comment on your writer’s disparaging remarks about palm oil in peanut butter (The food filter: who makes the best crunchy peanut butter?, 11 January).
In our early days we said “oil separation is natural, just stir it back in”. When we learned how roasting makes peanut oil prone to rancidity, with negative health and flavour effects, we looked at ways of stabilising it to stop this happening, without using hydrogenated fat like other leading brands.
Adding 3% palm oil under controlled-temperature conditions stops oil separation and the consequent rancidity, with its off flavours and negative health impact. As a result, Whole Earth Foods grew to market leadership.
It is worth noting that two-thirds of the palm oil that comes into Europe ends up as biodiesel, fuelling cars and commercial delivery vehicles that bring products to consumers (and newspaper readers). Organic palm oil is produced under sustainable and ethical conditions.
After Denmark banned hydrogenated fat in 2003, within just over a decade heart disease deaths fell by more than 60% – and the same benefits are now widespread in countries where hydrogenated fat is no longer used. Palm oil makes peanut butter a healthier, fresher food that does not go rancid.
Craig Sams
Hastings, East Sussex
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