Time for a brain-stretch. Imagine a huge bucket. Reddish-yellowish oil dribbles into it little by little. In order to have enough palm oil for the whole world to use, the oil will have to keep dribbling until 60 million tons fill the bucket!

Palm oil comes from crushing the red-orange fruit of the African oil palm tree. Those trees grow only in very warm, wet places—especially rainforests. But why in the world do people want so much of it per year?

First of all, palm oil is edible. People can cook with it. Unlike some vegetable oils, it can get really hot for frying. Palm oil also starts off partially solid when it first comes from the tree. That makes it useful in snack foods that once used hydrogenated oils—oils that have had hydrogen added to them to turn them solid. Hydrogenated oils aren’t usually considered healthy. But palm oil has vitamins A, E, and the nutrient beta-carotene. That makes people want the oil even more.

Palm oil doesn’t just appeal to customers. It also appeals to farmers. Once oil palm trees start producing oil, they don’t slow down! They make lots and lots of it. In fact, a farmer can get more oil from a single oil palm tree than he or she can from any other type of plant. Other cooking oils, like canola (from the rapeseed plant) or soybean, take many plants to make the same amount of oil as an oil palm tree.

Most palm oil is used for food. But it also shows up in makeup, cleaners, and shampoo. It is also being tested as a kind of fuel. Unlike the land being burned to plant more trees, palm oil burns clean. It works well in diesel engines.

Palm oil is one of God’s rich natural gifts to us. It can be used for people’s good. But as always in a world broken by sin and greed, we have a challenge: How can we use His good gifts wisely?