Reading: Palm Oil Is Everywhere. Here's Why That Matters

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Source: HowStuffsWork

Put the following phrases/sentences in their correct place in the passage (one option is redundant)

1. cultivation of the oil palm
2. packaged products sold at the supermarket
3. as a source of fat
4. ubiquitous presence
5. amounted to more than a third
6. human factors of
7. animals such as orangutans, tigers, rhinoceros and elephants

You might not know what palm oil is, but chances are, without realizing it, you consume it in some form — or many different ones — each day.

It's an ingredient in about half of all ....(a).... — from instant noodles and ice cream to pizza and packaged bread — and is also found in lipstick, soap, shampoo and detergent, as this handy chart from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) details. In other countries, it's heavily used as a biofuel for cars and trucks. Indeed, the world consumed 75.8 million tons (68.8 million metric tons) of palm oil in 2017, which ....(b).... of all the vegetable oils used on the planet.

Palm oil's ....(c)...., and the world's growing consumption of it, has a lot of environmental activists deeply worried. The Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, warns that ....(d).... tree, (Elaeis guineensis), which produces the fruit from which palm oil is extracted, is driving the cutting down and burning of tropical rainforests in southeast Asia, which is increasing health risks from pollution and pumping planet-warning carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as well as driving ....(e).... from their habitats.

So what is palm oil, anyway, and how did it get to be so ubiquitous in modern civilization?

It wasn't always that way. Palm oil is produced from the fruit of the oil palm tree, which is native to west Africa. For centuries, it's been part of the traditional diet in that region ....(f).... and other nutrients, and is utilized as a cooking oil and an ingredient in folk medicines. African small farmers planted it in forests, "where it was grown as part of a mixed agro-forestry system," according to Jeff Conant, director of Friends of the Earth's international forests program, which works to protect the rights of forest-dependent peoples by addressing the economic issues driving forest destruction.

While the palm oil that's processed for use in products is tasteless, palm oil grown in the traditional fashion in west Africa actually has an "intense" taste, according to Conant. It's an ingredient in soups and other dishes.

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