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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia criticized the World Health Organization on Monday (May 4) for recommending that adults avoid palm oil in their diet during the COVID-19 outbreak and that they use alternatives such as olive oil.
The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean said in a recent advisory that people should consume unsaturated fats found in fish, avocado, walnut, olive oil, soy, canola, sunflower and corn oils instead of Saturated fats found in fatty meat, butter, palm, and coconut. oils, cream, cheese, lard and lard.
Malaysia, the world’s second-largest producer of palm oil, said that advice was “outdated.”
“Regarding dietary fat as an important source of calories, the WHO, through its most recent advice, has again fallen into the same old well of promoting certain basic oils while neglecting palm oil,” Kalyana Sundram, CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), a state agency responsible for promoting the product, said in an opinion piece by MPOC.
The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the MPOC’s position.
The MPOC article says that palm oil has a natural balance of saturated and unsaturated fats to ensure the absorption of various micronutrients in the diet, requires no hydrogenation (treating oils with hydrogen to increase their shelf life), and is available in large quantities .
“In countries where fat intake is below WHO recommendations, as is the case in large parts of Asia and Africa, the approach to health is different,” said the MPOC. “The need to provide a reliable, sustainable, and affordable source of calories to prevent malnutrition (and increased susceptibility to infection) is paramount.”
Kalyana said the WHO should focus on proposing “radically different health management ideas” rather than resorting to “outdated messages.”
Palm oil is used in everything from infant formulas to crackers, but the demand for vegetable oil has been affected by the closure of restaurants during virus-related blockades in many countries.
Neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia together produce 85 percent of the world’s palm oil, but the industry has faced intense criticism from environmentalists for the massive stripping of tropical forests to produce the lucrative crop.
