More about bread

I have heard from Hovis about why they use small quantities of palm oil in their loaves. Apparently they justify it by saying that it's a good replacement for animal fat (ie lard) which used to be used by bakers. Sunflower/rapeseed oil etc is too liquid it needs to be a hard fat to stop too many bubbles bursting at a critical moment during baking. If the bubbles burst, it gives a texture to the bread that is too open. (Their answer is much longer and very technical!)

Still waiting for responses from Kingsmill and Warburton, I will have to follow up my enquiries through their website contact form with a snail mail letter expressing how disapointed I am with them.

I've now got a book on breadmaking now (ordered that one from Amazon), it's supposed to be the definitive guide to breadmaking and how odd that they don't mention the necessity for hard fat instead of oil; all their recipes use sunflower oil.

But the big discovery of the last few days on the bread front has been palm oil free bread from the Co-Op. Their 2 part baked baguettes which you finish baking yourself uses rapeseed oil and their truly irresistable ciabatta uses extra virgin olive oil. It makes a great bread to eat with the chilled carrot, ginger and lime soup, plus I've also made a big roll with ham, tomato and chutney yesterday which was lovely. The texture of the ciabatta is indeed open but that didn't detract from it for me.

I'm still working on the stock problem so the soup, whilst very very nice, is unacceptable to me once the Swiss Marigold Vegetable Bouillon runs out. I can't seem to find out on-line who makes Vecon so I'm going to have to look at the label again next time I'm shopping and get the manufacturer then.

Excllent news and a disappointment

Excellent response from Elemis who say:
I can confirm that we do not use Palm Oil or any Palm Oil derivatives in our products. This includes the ingredients you have mentioned below. These ingredients are derived from alternative sources such like Coconut Oil.

I've already used the bathroom this morning but I will start using the shampoo and conditioner tomorrow and let you know what I think

There's been a bit of a blow on the chilled soups front. I got all the ingredients I need to make the carrot, ginger and lime chilled soup yesterday. However, I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder to make my stock with. I'm happy to spend the time making the soup but making vegetable stock as well is just a time commitment too far I'm afraid. However, Palm Oil is listed as an ingredient of the Vegetable Bouillon powder, along with an asterisk saying that it's sourced from sustainable plantations. 10 out of 10 for adopting an honest labelling policy but ...

As you know, I'm adopting a zero tolerance on palm oil, it's too easy to say it's sustainable and when you hear anecdotal evidence from people working in the field with the wildlife say there's no such thing as sustainable palm oil, plus the fact that a WWF report states that
only 1 percent of the sustainable palm oil available on the market has been bought,
I'm disinclined to believe companies that say they are currently buying from sustainable sources. I'm writing to Marigold Health Foods to tell them how disappointed I am.

So I'm now on the hunt for an alternative. The reason I like the Marigold Bouillon powder is that it has no preservatives, colouring or artificial flavouring. Oxo beef stock cubes don't have palm oil but the flavour is a bit strong and it's packed with E-numbers and MSG.