MPOC – PB Food Experiences

Malaysian Palm Oil Council : Gourmet Delights

Recently been to a Malaysian Palm Oil Council event, , the objective of the event was to bring awareness among people regarding the benefits of using Palm oil and to nullify the rumors that are being spread. The Event was at Smoky Pitara, which is located in Jubliee hills. The Event was designed as 3 stages i.e.

Stage 1 : Starting the event with a brief Presentation by Miss Bhavna shah who is the MPOC Country Representative for India and Srilanka, explaining the benefits and uses of palm oil.

PALM OIL

Palm oil is derived from the flesh of the fruit of the oil palm species E. Guineens is. In its virgin form, the oil is bright orange-red due to the high content of carotene. Palm oil is Nature’s Gift to Malaysia, and Malaysia’s to the World.

Palm oil is semi-solid at room temperature; a characteristic brought about by its approx. 50 percent saturation level. Palm oil (and its products) has good resistance to oxidation and heat at prolonged elevated temperatures; hence, making palm oil an ideal ingredient in frying oil blends. Manufacturers and end-users around the world incorporate high percentages of palm oil in their frying oil blends for both performance and economic reasons.

In fact, in many instances, palm oil has been used as 100 percent replacement for traditional hydrogenated seed oils such as soybean oil and canola. Products fried in palm oil include potato chips, french fries, doughnuts, ramen noodles and nuts.

Which Products use Palm oil ?

Palm oil is in nearly everything – it’s in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It’s also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world.

Why is Palm oil Everywhere ?

Palm oil is an extremely versatile oil that has many different properties and functions which makes it so useful and so widely used. It is semi-solid at room temperature so can keep spreads spreadable; it is resistant to oxidation and so can give products a longer shelf-life; it’s stable at high temperatures and so helps to give fried products a crispy and crunchy texture; it’s also odourless and colourless so doesn’t alter the look or smell of food products. In Asian and African countries, palm oil is used widely as a cooking oil, just like we might use sunflower or olive oil here

Why Don’t we just switch to an alternative Vegetable Oil?

Palm oil is an incredibly efficient crop, producing more oil per land area than any other equivalent vegetable oil crop. Globally, palm oil supplies 35% of the world’s vegetable oil demand on just 10% of the land. To get the same amount of alternative oils like soybean or coconut oil you would need anything between 4 and 10 times more land, which would just shift the problem to other parts of the world and threaten other habitats and species.

Stage 2 : It includes fun activities i.e we are given clue cards , we need to figure out the Restaurant , Visit the restaurant and finish the fun activity. This activity goes on for 3 other Restaurants.

The attendees have been made into 5 groups of 3 people each. We have been given clue cards where we have to find out the Restaurant name out of the Clues given, So the First Clue is the number behind Sachin Tendulkars t shirt and name of the continent, so we conclude it as ” 10 Asia Kitchen ” , where we have to mix Ice cream , cookies, chocolates which were made out of palm oil . Ours was the First team which arrived, we just mixed everything and galloped.

Once the activity is done we have been given the next clue card which says that the word that goes with Aloo in chat and one of things u get in Goa , So that defines as ” Tikki Shack “. The Activity that was planned for us was a Quiz about Palm oil, we tried our best to answer all the Questions and moved on to our next clue i.e. whats the opposite of Rural , So it striked in our mind that its ” Urban Asia ” . The Activity that was Planned for us was to make a Salad made out of Palm oil. We made a Bloggers Salad using Different kinds of veggies like Carrots, Broccoli , tomatoes etc and seasoned them with some spices and palm oil. Then we moved on to our next activity which was at ” Eat India Company ” where we have to do a Blind Tasting , where we have to guess all the ingredients used in the dishes made out of palm oil, Which just elevated the taste. It proves again that the Palm oil is versatile oil. And then get back to the place where we started the activity from.

It was a fun filled Activity, where we used Palm oil in all the activity and gained some knowledge about Palm oil like even Ice creams and Ferrero rocher use palm oil in their preparation. The Quiz made us learn many things like how much land is utilized for the cultivation and many more deep things. The Preparation of Salad helped us know how versatile the oil can be. In the Blind Tasting session all the dishes were cooked with Palm oil but the taste was no different from the regular taste, this activity surely cleared all the doubts about using palm oil in cooking.

Stage 3 : Where we have to deliver a One liner dialogues from Bollywood and Tollywood.

We have to Deliver a Dialogue from any Tollywood or Bollywood movie , I choose to say the Dialogue of one of my Favorites i.e Allu ARJUN , Its from a Movie named ” Iddaramaylatho ” , the dialogue goes like ” Nuv ontariga unnapdu , Ninnu Evaru chudatledu ani neeku telsinapdu , Nuvento ade ne Orginal Character ” which means When you are all alone, when you know that no one is watching us, then what you are is your Orginal Character.