I avoid palm oil in foods for the simple reason I don't consider anything made with palm oil to be a "whole" food. But I've never known what to do about other products like soap.
P.S. To bystanders, you may think your soaps don't contain palm oil. Check for anything like "lauryl sulfate". That's (probably) palm oil.
My parents, born in India in late 50s, rarely had access to soaps and detergents growing up in the countryside. They are still very conscientious in how much detergent they use. It's a lot of bad habits that mega-corps have tried to push onto us.
And it can go under so many names after it's been processed by the Oleochemical industry - https://www.ran.org/the-understory/palm_oil_s_dirty_secret_t...
Not eating Oreo filling or Nutella is just generally good health advice (if you want chocolate + hazelnut spread, you can buy ones made out of hazelnuts and chocolate instead of mostly sugar and palm oil; plenty of available packaged cookies have little or no vegetable oil). Plenty of available peanut butter has nothing but “peanuts” as an ingredient. Make your own pie crust using flour and butter (or lard). Etc.
Avoiding palm oil in soap/shampoo is harder; best first step is probably to reduce soap consumption. Most people use way more soap than necessary, way more often than necessary.
Their liquid soap doesn't contain palm oil.
In addition, you still rely on those monopolies to provide you with the utility: https://startyourownisp.com/posts/fiber-provider/
(1) as a feedstock for making surfactants in personal cleaners (shampoos, toothpaste, bath gel) like sodium laureth sulfate [1]; (2) as a substitute for partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (incl. trans fats) in food manufacturing; partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils (containing unsaturated fatty acids) will alter their melting point and texture to produce solid-at-room-temp shortening; and (3) as a cooking oil. Lately, it has also seen some use in biodiesel.
To replace palm oil in surfactants, you can use coconut oil (which is even more intensive to produce), or by synthesizing the precursors from mined hydrocarbons (typically oil or natural gas) using a variety of clever chemical reactions; or lard from animals, which requires raising animals.
To replace palm oil in food manufacturing, you can use coconut oil, lard, or you can partially hydrogenate unsaturated fatty acids derived from many vegetable oils; by doing the latter you're converting some of your product into trans fat.
To replace palm oil in cooking, choose from a variety of other oils and fats.
Unfortunately, almost all of the European and US consumption is for manufacturing, while elsewhere it's used for cooking as well. While European and US suppliers do own palm oil plantations, they also source from other producers. This complicates the market: boycotts against big manufacturers of soap or food will drive the price of palm oil lower, increasing the likelihood that it will be offloaded to a different set of countries as cheap cooking oil.
Do you have any reliable resources on how to do this? I would like to, but I'm always dubious of the resources I find, since they seem to be biased. Not that I don't trust their information, but I just have a hard time verifying it.
I mean there is a chance I've got a product with wrong labeling. I just accept I have to trust other people or the labels to figure out if information is incorrect.
Is there oil labeled as "vegetable oil" that contains palm oil? Or is there another reason you think it should be avoided?
but what if it's just regular sunflower oil or something of the sort?