Cooking oil is plant, animal or synthetic fat that is used for cooking. It is
also used in food preparation and flavouring that does not involve heat, such as
salads. It is typically a liquid at room temperature. There is a wide variety
of cooking oils from plant sources. They include olive oil, palm oil, soybean
oil, canola oil, corn oil and peanut oil.
Palm oil is rich in natural chemical compounds important for health and
nutrition. Carotenoids are natural chemical compounds that give crude palm oil
its orange-red colour. In fact, unrefined and crude palm oil are nature's
richest source of carotenoids when compared to other vegetable oils. Palm oil
has 15 more carotenoids than carrots and 30 times more than tomatoes. Palm oil
is also rich in Vitamin E. In fact, no other vegetable oil has as much Vitamin E
as palm oil. The oil is also rich in calories.
More than 1 million small holders and their families have a direct stake in
the success of the Malaysian Oil Palm industry. Hundreds of thousands of
families and communities have been lifted from poverty with their participation
in the palm oil sector. |