Over Het verhaal van de palmolie

Het verhaal van de palmolie

Avondlezing door dr. ir. G. van Duijn (ex-Unilever) georganiseerd door de Rotterdamsche Chemische Kring.

Informatie over de lezing, in de bewoordingen van de spreker:
Hard fats, triacylglycerols solid at ambient temperature, are needed to produce a wide range of important foodstuffs. Until the mid 1990ties, hard fats were produced by partial hydrogenation of edible oils. Hard fats with a variety of melting properties could be produced by selection of the starting oil, hydrogenation conditions and degree of saturation. However, cis-trans isomerization was an unavoidable side reaction of double bond saturation. A shift of opinion of the role of trans fatty acids in relation to blood cholesterol and cardio vascular diseases resulted in the elimination of partial hydrogenated fats as ingredient in foodstuffs. They have been mainly replaced by palm oil, palm stearin and palm kernel oil, all products from the oil palm tree. This use as essential hard fat together with the use of palm olein as main cooking oil in Asia, of palm derivatives for non-food applications, and of palm oil as fuel or feed stock for bio-diesel, has developed palm oil into the largest globally used vegetable oil. Alternatives for palm oil as hard fat source and as main cooking oil in Asia will not be available in the foreseeable future. The growth of the palm oil volume has led to loss of high value rainforest in Malaysia and Indonesia. An initiative of producers, downstream industry, non-governmental organizations (like WWF) and retailers, the so-called Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), developed principles and criteria for sustainable palm oil production. The continuing increase of palm oil volume can be obtained sustainably by applying these RSPO principles and criteria.

Levensbeschrijving, eveneens in eigen bewoordingen:
Gerrit is born in Katwijk (the Netherlands) in 1951 and has a PhD in Applied Physics from the Delft University of Technology. He joined Unilever in 1982 as researcher specialized in edible oil processing and after four years became internal oil processing advisor.
From 1990 until 1996 he worked in France as oil refinery manager.
After returning to the Netherlands he was responsible for the global technological support of oils and fats supply to Unilever.
He left Unilever end 2011 and was for almost two years the general manager of a specialized toll refinery in the port of Rotterdam (Maasrefinery).
He retired in January 2014 and is still part-time active as consultant. Until end 2015 he was president of the European Federation of Lipid Science and Technology.

Introducé(e)s zijn van harte welkom.

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