Today I learned that palm oil was created by Satan...

[rowell]

Which means that I need to find a replacement for my vegan Smart Balance margarine. Has anyone here found vegan margarine that isn't created by hydrogenation? If not, is it possible to replace the margarine I would use in baking and, say, mashed potatoes with olive oil, or vegetable oil, or any other healthy oil?

Also, I was excited to order Daiya cheese to try out, but now that won't be an option because of the palm oil. Has anyone tried the Vegan Gourmet cheeses made by Follow Your Heart? It seems a bit expensive to me, but if people on here have good things to say about it, I might just splurge and give it a whirl.

I'm also wondering if there are other food items that, while are themselves vegan, are not vegan when considering animal, environmental, and human rights issues that get woven into the production. This is my first month vegan, but I've been working hard to eat as purely as possible to avoid eating materials that could be animal derived. It's a little disheartening to find out that, despite my best intentions, even something that seemed vegan ends up being a cultivator of cruelty.

[kpickell]

vegetable oil is palm oil.

[Semicharmed]

Has anyone tried the Vegan Gourmet cheeses made by Follow Your Heart? It seems a bit expensive to me, but if people on here have good things to say about it, I might just splurge and give it a whirl.

I have tried it. I've only tried the mozzarella, but it was awesome the way I ate it.

I made a vegan pizza, melted the FYH cheese in a small saucepan, poured it over the pizza, and baked it!

Worked for me, since pizza is one of the few things I sometimes feel NEEDS cheese. I am happy with cheeseless pizza lots of times, but once in a while? I so want cheese! So I use FYH and it satisfies that craving.

[rowell]

Good good. I agree. I have missed cheesy pizza and putting cheese in burritos and stuff. So I will try it.

[Irizary]

vegetable oil is palm oil.

All vegetable oil is not palm oil.

I like Follow Your Heart mozzarella a lot.

[cerealkiller]

olive oil is a healthy oil to use in baking (but not in cooking at high heat). you can also replace the oil in baking with an equal amount of applesauce.

FYH mozzarella is decent when melted. i don't recall the ingredients, tho. the cheddar/nacho wasn't quite my thing.

it can be pretty difficult to find companies that are 100% vegan/ethical/environmentally sound when you take into account all of the other factors concerned with production and ownership. here's a compilation of charts (https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html) showing the parent companies and acquisitions/alliances of the more common brands of organic/veg*n products. many common veg. products/product lines are owned by the nation's largest factory farming companies or companies that support this.

your best bet is to eat mainly whole foods (fruits, veggies, grains, etc.) and buy from as local of a source as possible. it IS all so frustrating and disheartening, but we just have to try to do the best that we can.

[vegton]

Also, I was excited to order Daiya cheese to try out, but now that won't be an option because of the palm oil.

Ok, I'm confused here. I just read all the ingredients for Daiya cheese and didn't see palm oil. Which ingredient is actually palm oil? Sorry, I'm new to this no palm oil thing. :)

[rowell]

Vegton, I actually just looked on the website and didn't see palm oil. I might have been confused by one of the articles I read, because one of them said that it contained palm oil. Looks as though it actually doesn't, unless I am misreading something listed there. Sorry about the confusion.

[rowell]

This is the thing that confused me:

http://nothoney.com/2009/06/15/vegan-cheese-is-just-as-inhumane-as-dairy-cheese/

[Semicharmed]

Yeah, I've seen several places say it has palm oil. (Here (http://soulveggie.blogs.com/my_weblog/2009/04/daiya-responds-re-vegan-cheeses-ingredients.html)is another.)

So perhaps it USED to?

Or maybe it still does. Because on their website it says the ingredients (the palm-free ones) are "based on products supplied to food service organizations." I'm not a food-service organization... I'm a regular customer. Are our ingredients different?

[adam antichrist]

Palm oil is used because it is bloody high in saturated fat, which makes it a solid at room temperature. Otherwise, they have to hydrogenate a vegetable oil to increase the concentration of saturated fatty acid chains. One is bad for your health, the other for the environment.

Mashed potato: use a light or subtle oil like peanut and some salt with soy milk. Works just as good. Olive oil has a strong flavour, so unless you want that flavour in your food go for something that won't overpower it.

Most oils are not good if they are heated as it alters the chemical makeup. I think canola (aka rapeseed) has the highest heat point so it is best for baking and frying, but can be produced from GM plants if that is an issue for you.

Personally, avoiding GM products is easy for me because they have only just began to produce GM crops in australia in the last 2 years so there is little contamination thus far. Before that all I had to look for was an indicator that the seed was grown in Australia to know it was GMO free. Anyway, palm oil will be ok once they stop cutting down forests; it is more or less a sustainable crop but the industry is growing exponentially atm which is why they are destroying ecosystems.

So for right now if it is a choice between GM, hydrogenation or dead tigers, I'd go with the GM product (for now) since it seems to be the least harmful to human health and environment.

[cadellin]

http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/showpost.php?p=2469989&postcount=39

Not all palm oil is created equal.