Planet Palm

A groundbreaking global investigation into the plant that is destroying our health and environment--from the James Beard Award-winning journalist Over the past decade, palm oil has oozed into every corner of our lives, with one of every two products on U.S. grocery store shelves containing some part of the tropical plant. Worldwide, palm oil production has doubled in that same period: oil palm plantations in Asia and Africa now cover an area larger than Uruguay. Why? Because our junk foods and beauty products depend on palm oil--and are fueling the destruction of the planet's only tropical rainforests and the cultures of the people who live in them, contributing to the extinction of other plant and animal species and to local food insecurity.

How did a crop most Americans have never heard of come to dominate our lives? James Beard Award-winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years traveling the globe, from Cameroon to Indonesia, reporting on the overwhelming human and environmental impacts of this poorly understood plant. The result is Planet Palm, a riveting account blending science, politics, and food, as seen through real characters whose lives have been upended by this hidden ingredient.

In the tradition of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, this groundbreaking work of first-rate journalism compels us to examine the connections between our declining health and deteriorating environment--and to ask what can be done.