[ARTIKEL] 11 Jun 2018
It started in the mid-1980s when the American Soybean Association (ASA) warned the American public about a newly discovered health threat, namely tropical oils. They allege that coconut oil is a saturated fat and will cause heart disease. Everywhere you turn, any product containing coconut or palm oil is criticized as “unhealthy”.
Not standing still, exporters of tropical oils such as palm oil and coconut oil from Malaysia are preparing public relations campaigns against so-called “vicious scare tactics” used against their products. The war for tropical oil has reached its peak.
Until then at stake was the $3 million per year vegetable oil market in the United States where the dominant domestic producer of soybean oil had waged a fierce propaganda war of the time against foreign competitors.
Tropical oil industries such as palm oil and coconut oil have few allies and less financial power than their rivals to retaliate, and therefore lack the ability to match the combined efforts of the CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) and the ASA. and other strengths possessed by the spreaders of the issue.
From the results of public relations conducted, only a few or a small part of them listened to the protests of spreading untrue information to attack tropical oils such as palm oil and coconut oil which had been bombarded with the issue of public lies.
By the time the attacks on coconut oil began, medical and research professionals familiar with coconut oil wanted to know why. Because they know that coconut oil does not cause heart disease and also has many benefits that are needed for the health of the human body.
Some of them even spoke up to rectify the problem which had spread unkindly. However, at that time the sentiment of the adoptive public had settled on the ASA side so that most of the people who had been eaten by the ASA also refused to hear the facts that had been found correctly.
Several researchers who are familiar with or familiar with tropical oils such as palm oil and coconut oil have been summoned to testify at a Senate hearing on the health effects of these products where at that time there was a very fierce debate to be able to prove which is fiction and which is fact.