This week’s Rose Cafe was a really interesting and insightful talk about the history and science of fats. Fats and nutrition have become such a popular topic of interest and controversy, with the “facts” changing all the time, confusing over “good” fats and “bad” fats, and a rising obesity epidemic. Therefore, this was a really interesting and relevant talk.

One topic discussed which I found really interesting was the topic of palm oil plantations and deforestation in certain places in South East Asia for the production of palm trees. I was particularly interested in this because I grew up in Singapore which is in South east Asia and is next to countries like Malaysia and Indonesia which produce a lot of palm oil. An aspect that wasn’t discussed regarding this issue of palm oil production is the health effects of the deforestation process. In Singapore, there would be a huge amounts of haze caused by the burning of forests in Indonesia for palm oil which can be a huge health risk- to the point where the government actually gave out free face masks to protect from pollution!

In conclusion, the topic of fats and nutrition is very complex and interesting and there are are many aspects to the issue.