Kentucky Fried Chicken Help Save Rainforests

The well known company KFC, have decided to stop using palm oil in the preparation of their fast food from April 2011 onwards. They claim that by removing this type of cooking oil from deep fat friers they are offering double benefits - mitigating climate change while also reducing the likelihood of heart disease for their customers.

"The reality, however, is that by reducing KFC's impact on rainforest environments, they are also contributing to biodiversity conservation", claims Matthew Owen, of Cool Earth, a leading international charity dedicated to rainforest conservation.

Environmentalists say this move will help save large tracts of forests - particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests have been destroyed to make way for plantations and the oil is high in artery-clogging saturated fat.

From now, KFC will use high oleic rapeseed oil in all of its 800 UK and Irish outlets, a change that may cost them £1 million a year, but which has invaluable environmental benefits and will reduce saturated fat levels in its chicken by around 25%.

Mark Bristow, head of KFC food assurance said: "Switching to high oleic rapeseed oil means not only can we offer our customers the benefit of reduced saturated fats, but the assurance we're doing everything we can to lessen our impact on the environment."

KFC claim that: "The palm oil industry has been a contributor to the destruction of tropical rainforests and peat lands to make way for palm oil plantations, which has inadvertently caused large amounts of greenhouse gases being pushed into the atmosphere."  However, for the present moment, the company still plan to use palm oil in fries, buns, tortillas and hash browns.

This welcome change follows pressure from campaigning organisations like Greenpeace who highlighted the threat to orangutans who depend on the very forests that palm oil plantations threaten.

Sources: www.mongabay.com and www.independent.co.uk

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