I thought I had got to the stage where everything I eat and drink at home was palm oil free but I have just discovered another foodstuff that I think probably contains palm oil. At this time of year I love to make stews and casseroles. It's particularly useful to make double or triple quantities towards the end of the week so I have a quick meal to reheat when I get home after a cold day of manning my jewellery stall. I never feel like cooking after such a long cold day and whilst I will occasionally resort to a frozen pizza (some of Co-op's own brand are palm oil free). I always prefer to eat non-processed food.
Stew wouldn't be stew without dumplings and I usually use a dumpling mix rather than make my own from fresh (what a contradiction after the last paragraph!) but all the brands I buy contain vegetable oil or vegetable fat. I have only just discovered dumpling mixes and suet contain vegetable fat because the cold weather has been so long arriving, I've only just got out the casserole dishes!
I haven't written to the brand manufacturers to enquire if - as is usually the case - the vegetable oil/fat is palm oil but I am abstaining from dumplings in the meantime until I have chance to write some letters/e-mails.
In the new year, when the big rush for my business has becalmed, I will be researching dumplings quite thoroughly. In the meantime, if anyone knows of palm oil free dumplings, I'd be very grateful!
EDIT: Recipe here that uses butter for dumplings. I will give these a go!
Update on household products, I have the following list of further manufacturers to write to about the household products that I use:
Clorox Car Care Ltd
Colron
Darcy Industries Ltd, Bolton
Emma Ltd
Homecare Products Ltd
Jeyes
Kiwi
Mykal Industries
PC Products (1001) Ltd
Persil
Proctor & Gamble
Reckit Benckiser
WD-40 Company Ltd
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Dumplings - 4oz s r flour, 2 oz shredded suet (vegetable suet is available but not sure of its source),pinch of salt, parsley (if you like it!) - mix into a firm dough with water, roll into balls and drop into stew...can't take much longer than a packet mix I wouldn't have thought :)
ReplyDeleteSounds good, thank you! I will be buying some palm oil free suet soon, unfortunately all the vegetarian brands seem to use palm oil or vegetable oil (commonly a euphemism for palm oil and so I am suspeciious of them). I can buy beef suet from Sainsburys so I will probably go with that but as it's so unhealthy, I might have to limit it to being a special treat now and again unless I can find one that uses some other kind of vegetable fat. As palm oil is a hard non-liquid fat, I can see why it's used to make a palm oil vegetarian version of suet, all the other vegetarian oils are liquid so I can't see how else they could do it but I am hopeful I might turn up something with some more research!
ReplyDeleteHello again, me, your recipe is very similar to the one on the side of the pack of Atora The Original which contains beef dripping and wheat flour and so is palm oil free. I tried it last night and they were lovely! :-)
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