Coconut oil can do it all! It has become the star of natural beauty and healthy cooking. Even if the raw material is of quality, it is on the side of the production processes that we must look to know if its consumption is eco-responsible or not. And unfortunately, as is often the case when a healthy food becomes fashionable, we have bad surprises…
Coconut oil, good for everything?
A few years ago we were amazed to discover the benefits of shea butter, but since then it is coconut oil that has become the star of healthy food and the minimalist and natural bathroom.
Indeed, it would be a remedy for almost everything, not only for the body but also on the plate and even in the house. It replaces all balms and other moisturizing milks to nourish the skin thanks to its strong emollient and softening power. It can also be used to make virtuous mouthwashes for oral health according to the principle of "Oil Pulling", an Indian mouthwash technique. It can also be used as a mask on the hair (split ends), on the nails and cuticles (to soften them) and as a makeup remover. Finally, it would relieve burns, sunburn, insect bites, eczema, acne... in short, a little miracle in the bathroom and... in the house. You can nourish leather and polish wood with coconut oil.
On the plate, it replaces other vegetable oils and is said to have positive effects on the arteries and the heart. However, its high content of saturated fatty acids (about 92%) makes its health benefits questionable and explains why we should avoid eating it cooked.
Manufacturers are also starting to want to replace palm oil (much criticized) with coconut oil. However, this oil presents many similar ecological problems… as always when a natural product creates a buzz and becomes the trendy food. Like the avocado, its intensive cultivation to meet demand triggers an environmental and social catastrophe.
Coconut oil, not eco-friendly
To begin with, we are talking about coconut oil here and not coconut milk or coconut water. Coconut oil is brandished as a natural alternative to almost everything, except that in reality, consumers and influencers extolling the merits of a healthy and eco-friendly life "forget" that this product is never local: its carbon footprint is bad since it is grown on the other side of the world. And that is the problem: the main coconut producing countries being in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Philippines), French Polynesia or India, and the main importers being the United States and Europe, it goes without saying that coconut oil will have emitted a lot of greenhouse gases (CO2) to reach the consumer.
Second major pitfall: with the exponential growth in demand, producers are encouraged to produce more and more and to make intensive monoculture. This method exhausts the soil and requires, to maintain profitability, the use of pesticides: toxic products that trigger immediate soil pollution and destruction of the biodiversity of the area. However, this culture is sometimes encouraged by local governments to renew old coconut plantations whose yield is declining, which does not prevent the products from being certified fair trade. In addition, these crops require irrigation in regions where populations sometimes lack water. The environmental impact of the farms has been negative for several years for nature, as well as for humans.
Coconut oil versus palm oil
Thus adorned with a "healthy" and "natural" reputation, coconut oil is often recommended as a replacement for the nasty palm oil, today associated with deforestation and the image of orangutans burned along with the forest.
While it is true that palm oil is an ecological scourge and has no health benefits, it is found in many industrial products because of its low cost. But coconut oil is not so far behind in terms of ecological nuisances. Coconut trees and palm trees require vast areas to grow; they take the place of forests and all their inhabitants. Unfortunately, the production areas are also the most fertile and those with the most precious biodiversity. And they are now being sacrificed. Coconut farms in the Philippines and Indonesia are said to have an even greater negative impact on biodiversity than palm oil plantations. This practice is causing the disappearance of certain endemic species and is now threatening many others, native to the regions where coconut trees are grown. It is probably a matter of time before the immaculate reputation of coconut oil is tarnished like that of palm oil. If the production of coconut oil is not (yet) as dramatic for the ecology as palm oil, notably thanks to coconut trees which can grow almost anywhere, even on sandy soil which reduces deforestation, it is up to us to ensure that it becomes more virtuous.
Coconut oil, social and animal ethics
Another terrible consequence of the increasing demand for coconut oil: monoculture production is favored by industrialists who abandon small farms in favor of sometimes mechanized plantations. Family plantations are marginalized, small farms disappear, and local populations therefore do not benefit at all from this increase in activity. Worse, small farmers no longer have the choice of independence, and are enslaved by large producers who grant them poverty wages. We are talking about $1 per day on average, for the majority of them. This Western frenzy to consume coconut oil therefore ultimately promotes the precariousness and extreme poverty of already weakened populations. Worse, in this quasi-mafia labor market, harvesters also suffer from competition... from monkeys! The exploiters have indeed found nothing better than to capture small monkeys such as pig-tailed macaques, to train them to train them (in conditions that we do not know but which we can guess are not glorious) to climb to the top of coconut trees to pick coconuts. Faster than men, forced to work at will and free of charge, animal exploitation is here pushed to its paroxysm. Separated from its community, trained in a doubtless barbaric manner, used as a tool whose yield must always be increased, the little monkey exploited reduced to slavery, lives in chains with no hope of one day doing anything other than the actions imposed on it. According to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) the monkeys are trained to be able to pick up to 1,000 coconuts per day!
While this is obviously a practice that should be denounced, it is an entire system that should be reviewed because far from being prosperous farmers, the operators are subject to the oppression of an ever-increasing demand, to which they must respond at the lowest price via an unhealthy market where competition forces them to a price that they cannot set, so that the consumer (therefore us) can buy their coconut oil at a low price too.
Choosing Coconut Oil Better
Coconut oil can be purchased with fair trade or even organic labels, although there are very few of them. But it is mainly by paying a little more and by dissecting the labels that we can try to eliminate low-end products directly resulting from the exploitation of workers on plantations. It is also possible to buy it in bulk from an ethical store that will have verified its source and if possible verified that the supply chains are sustainable. Choose a pure oil and avoid industrial products indicating "deodorized coconut oil", but also "hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils" or even "vegetable fats" which can be mixtures. Finally, we can use networks of consumers committed to the environment, and/or vegan groups that exchange information and publish lists of respectful and ethical brands (Facebook group Vegetarian, Vegan, Vegan & Cool for example), which can guarantee the production methods and guarantee not to use monkeys for picking. A few years ago, upon learning of the exploitation of monkeys, some supermarkets in Great Britain had withdrawn the offending products from sale, forcing suppliers to commit themselves against this practice and to eliminate it.
The Western world absolutely must rethink its consumption because, like everything that experiences exponential growth on the other side of the world, coconut oil becomes a source of problems for nature and for populations. When demand becomes global, the system can no longer rely on human-scale networks or be fair. No intensive cultivation can respect the environment, like those of vanilla, cocoa or avocados. It is up to companies to take responsibility and verify responsible sourcing, but also - and above all - for consumers to demand ethical products and agree to pay a slightly higher price. Because as with fast fashion, when an exotic or very far-off product remains so cheap at the checkout, it is because someone else, on the other side of the world, is paying the full price.
