Last of the Alpen gone

Just had my breakfast. In the cupboard, we had half a packet of Kellogs Cornflakes (palm oil free) and enough for one bowl of Alpen. I prefer Alpen but as their raisins are processed using Palm Oil, it's out for me so my husband, Geoff, had the rest of that as it's lower in salt. I don't really like Cornflakes but have dutifully eaten them - must find something else soon!

Morflake have written back to confirm that none of the products they make contain palm oil (hurray!) but they acknowledge that
"Most Vine Fruit processors use an industry standard dressing oil, Durkex 500NG, to prevent the fruit from clumping into a solid mass during transit or storage in 12.5kg cartons. The oil is present at less than 0.5% and is supplied by Loders Croklaan who hold their cards very close to the chest and will only describe it as 'A Non-Lauric Vegetable Oil'. However this supplier has in the past advertised themselves as 'The Global Source for Palm Oil' so I leave you to draw your own conclusions."

So I've decided that anything containing dried vine fruits are out for me. I have therefore ordered three of the Mornflake products that don't contain dried vine fruits:

• MORNFLAKE OAT CLASSICS GRANNY SMITH APPLE CRISP
• MORNFLAKE SUPERFAST OATS
• MORNFLAKE OATBRAN FLAKES

and hope that I like them better than Cornflakes. Only one product in the Mornflake range is carried by Tesco which is convenient shopping for me. I have decided to write to a couple of other breakfast cereal companies which are carried by Tesco and see what they say about their products. But not today, Friday is a much too busy day for me to spend any more time on this.

I got a response from Waleda which confirms that they only use sustainable palm oil in their products but they didn't state how it's labelled so I can identify it. I think from looking at their ingredients it's "sodium palmate" but I have written back for confirmation.

I'm compiling a list of the euphemisms that companies use on their labels for palm oil - this will become a permanent list in the blog as a widget (again something to do for the future). In the meantime, here are the ones that I have read about during my research. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information as I've only got it from websites but if anyone knows any better, let me know! I'm just an ordinary person trying to reduce the demand for palm oil that my personal buying choices make.

Foodstuffs
cocoa butter equivalent (CBE)
cocoa butter substitute (CBE)
palm olein
palm stearine

Non-foods
cetyl alcohol
elaeis guineensis
fatty alcohol sulphates
isopropyl
sleareth
sodium lauryl sulphate
stearic acid

The fact that sodium lauryl sulphate is in the above list and yet the vine fruit processor says that it uses a non-lauric vegetable oil ... does that mean it ISN'T palm oil? Surely they would have nothing to hide if it isn't though - confusing! When is palm oil not palm oil - this needs to be much clearer on product labelling.