The diary game: How palm oil is processed

How I spent last Friday, processing palm oil

On Friday I went to the village to process some palm oil, and here are the events that took place in the mill. But let me start by telling you a little about palm oil.

About palm oil

Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil. it originated from the West Africa. The palm oil contains high beta carotene content, it contains 884 calories, total fat of 100grams,it is a cooking ingredients mainly for the tropical part of Africa.It is used in commercial food industry. Not only as a cooking ingredients it can also be used to produce pomade, body cream, cosmetics hair cream,etc .It also used for the manufacturing of bio-fuel also know as green fuel,used for motors.It is also used for the manufacturing of aircraft fuel.

How we processed the fruit into oil

1.Hawesting: it is done by cutting the bunch from the tree. A bunch weighs about 25kg. It being been carried to where it can be processed. This was done a few days ago

2.Removal of fruit from the bunch: This process is know as threshing. it can be done manually with an axe or machete. this is done to separate the fruit from the spikelets.

3.cooking of the fruit: This is done by sterilization. it is cooked with water. this is done in order to destroy oil splitting enzymes and this was today's work.

^Cooking

^Pounding

4.pressing: This is when the palm oil is being
extracted. There are two methods of extracting palm oil this include :-
The wet and the dry method
The dry method is done by extracting the oil through clothes,oil extractor,etc,

^{Pressing out the oil}

while the wet method is done by using hot water to reach out the oil, it can also be cooked with fire in order to separate water from the oil.And then my palm oil is ready for use.

Types of palm oil

They are two types of palm oil:-

• The crude palm oil
• The palm kernel oil

1. Crude palm oil is gotten when squeezing the fleshy fruit.it is watering and reddish in colour.it is reddish because of the high- beta carotene content. it has several benefit which includes:-
   It is used for cooking, it aids metabolism,it is used to reduce the glucose level in the blood.it helps in reducing cancer.it provides energy.it helps during pregnancy.

2. palm kernel oil is an edible plant oil gotten when the kernel is being crushed. The palm kernel oil is dark black colour and has a unique strong taste and smell.
   it's benefit include :- it is used as skin glow, when rubbed on the skin it make the skin soft and glossy.it is rich in vitamin A and K,it contains the amount of saturated fat the body needs. it can be used to cure epilepsy.when used for the hair,it increases hair growth.it tackles body odour because of it unique smell. it is good for the bone and joints because of it nutritional content

^{Oil extraction in the press}

How kennel is being separated, the kennel will be packed into the engine n the operator will then control the engine to separate the kennel from the charf and the engine is know as separator

^{the kanel separator}

Thought we used some heavy locally made machine to accomplish most of the task, we went home very tired and exhausted.