There is a colour that immediately announces itself in the Nigerian kitchen. This colour is the deep orange-red glow of palm oil sizzling in virtually every Nigerian pot of soup, coating steaming plates of yam, colouring soft pulpy beans, giving ofada rice that distinctive character and transforming ordinary ingredients into food that carries the unmistakable aroma of home.
Nigerian palm oil has travelled far more than any cooking oil. It has been food, farming, commerce, household wealth, indigenous knowledge and culinary identity. From the palm groves of the South-East and South-South to kitchens across Nigeria, the African oil palm has quietly shaped the country’s food culture.
Today, however, an important question deserves to be asked and this is simple, can the traditional knowledge and culinary practices surrounding Nigerian red palm oil become part of the country’s case for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage recognition?
The answer is potentially yes, but the proposal must be about the living cultural practices surrounding palm oil, rather than simply asking UNESCO to list ‘palm oil’ as a product.
The African oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, is indigenous to West Africa. The Food and Agriculture Organization notes that oil palm processing for edible oil has been practised in Africa for thousands of years and that the naturally highly coloured and flavoured oil became an essential ingredient in traditional West African cuisine and Nigeria sits at the heart of this history. The palm tree has long been woven into the economic and social life of communities in the humid southern parts of the country.
It provides not only palm oil but palm kernels, palm wine, fibres, leaves and other useful materials. FAO documentation describes the oil palm as one of the most widely exploited forest species in West Africa and records the importance of palm-oil processing as an income-generating activity, particularly for women in south-eastern Nigeria.
The fascinating chapter in Nigeria’s economic history is quite fascinating Reports say during the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, Nigeria was the world’s leading producer of palm oil, with a reported global market share of about 43 per cent and annual production of approximately 645,000 metric tonnes. The Nigerian oil-palm economy was later severely disrupted by political, economic and agricultural changes, including the civil war, which occurred largely in the country’s eastern oil-palm belt. But long before palm oil became an international commodity, it was already an ingredient of everyday African cooking.
Traditional palm-oil processing is a remarkable example of indigenous food technology. The mature fruit bunches are harvested, the individual fruits separated and softened, and the fleshy mesocarp is processed to release the oil. Traditional methods have involved boiling, pounding, pressing and separating the oil from water and fibrous material. FAO documentation records traditional Nigerian processing techniques involving boiling the fruits and pounding them to release the oil. These are not merely mechanical activities but a representation of knowledge.
Knowing when a bunch is mature, how long the fruits should be processed, how the pulp should be handled, how to separate oil from water and impurities, how to store the finished oil and how to recognise good-quality oil are all forms of indigenous food knowledge. In many communities, such knowledge has historically been transmitted orally and practically from parents to children, from experienced processors to younger generations and within farming and market networks. That is precisely where the cultural-heritage argument becomes powerful.
UNESCO defines intangible cultural heritage as practices, knowledge and skills recognised by communities as part of their heritage and transmitted from generation to generation. The Convention specifically requires the participation of the communities that create, maintain and transmit the heritage. Therefore, Nigeria’s potential heritage proposition should not simply be ‘Nigerian Palm Oil.’ It could be framed around something more culturally complete, such as: ‘Traditional Knowledge and Culinary Practices of Nigerian Red Palm Oil Production and Cuisine.’
Such a proposition could document the indigenous knowledge of oil-palm cultivation, harvesting, processing, storage, culinary use, food preparation, apprenticeship, women’s processing traditions, market practices, festivals, oral histories and intergenerational transmission.
One of the most important food facts that every Nigerian consumer should understand is the fact that natural red palm oil is supposed to be red because the colour is largely derived from carotenoids naturally present in the oil. FAO identifies carotenoids as the pigments responsible for palm oil’s deep red colour. NAFDAC’s draft fats-and-oils regulations also recognise total carotenoids as a quality characteristic of red palm oil, specifying a range for total carotenoids in red palm oil.
Thus, the assumption that ‘very red means fake’ is scientifically too simplistic. At the same time, the opposite assumption that every very red oil is genuine is equally dangerous. This is where Nigeria’s current palm-oil adulteration controversy enters the story.
The red-dye alarm
A viral video reported recently has however triggered public concern after showing concentrated dye being added to palm oil to intensify its colour. The incident has generated calls for stronger regulatory intervention and renewed discussion about food fraud. Although the concern is not completely new, research in Nigeria has previously investigated the adulteration of palm oil with azo dyes, including Sudan III and Sudan IV.
A 2026 study examining awareness among palm-oil vendors also reported that some vendors had heard of Sudan dye being used to adulterate palm oil, while respondents identified colour, taste, smell and texture among the characteristics they used when attempting to recognise adulterated oil. Importantly, these observations demonstrate the existence of an adulteration concern; they do not mean that every market sample is adulterated.
Natural carotenoids and an illegally added industrial dye are two entirely different things. Carotenoids are naturally occurring plant pigments. Some are precursors of vitamin A and contribute to the nutritional value of unrefined red palm oil. Sudan dyes, on the other hand, are synthetic industrial dyes associated with food-fraud incidents. They are not legitimate ingredients for making cooking oil look more attractive.
Some studies have also raised toxicological concerns regarding exposure to azo dyes used to adulterate palm oil, including evidence of effects on organs in laboratory animals. That is why consumers should not deliberately seek out palm oil simply because it is ‘the reddest.’ The red colour of authentic palm oil comes from the palm fruit. It should never need to be manufactured with an unsafe colouring agent.
Consumers should buy from trusted processors and reputable sellers, avoid unusually suspicious products and report suspected adulteration to the appropriate food-safety authorities.
Palm oil is primarily fat, so it is energy-dense. Its nutritional profile includes saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, with palmitic acid being a major saturated fatty acid. But crude or minimally processed red palm oil has something that highly refined oil may lose: naturally occurring minor compounds, particularly carotenoids and vitamin-E-related compounds such as tocopherols and tocotrienols.
Scientific reviews have identified carotenoids, vitamin E compounds and phenolic substances among palm oil’s bioactive components. The carotenoid content is especially significant because it explains both the colour and part of the nutritional interest surrounding traditional red palm oil. This, however, should not turn palm oil into a ‘miracle food.’
One of the traditional nutritional attractions of unrefined red palm oil is its carotenoid content. Some carotenoids can be converted by the body into vitamin A, an essential nutrient involved in normal vision, immune function and other physiological processes.FAO has described palm-oil products as an important source of vitamin A in West African diets. But there is an important culinary-health qualification: red palm oil should complement a varied diet rather than be regarded as a treatment for vitamin-A deficiency. The amount of carotenoids retained in palm oil can vary with variety, ripeness, processing, storage and refining.
Palm oil is not a poison, but a fat that should be consumed in sensible quantities within an overall balanced diet. Palm oil contains a significant proportion of saturated fat. The World Health Organization recommends limiting saturated fat to less than 10 per cent of total energy intake and notes that unsaturated fats are generally preferable to saturated fats. WHO has also reviewed the evidence specifically on palm-oil consumption and cardiovascular health.
The best advice is to use authentic palm oil, appropriately, and maintain dietary variety and moderation. Palm oil used in virtually all Nigerian vegetable soup except the likes of white or Nsala soup and some kinds of pepper soup.
Palmoil is cultural. It speaks through food. Through our cultural soups like Banga, Egusi soup, Afang, Edikaikong, Ofe Onugbu, Ofe Oha, as well as Nigerian beans dishes, yam preparations and various kinds of sauces and soups. Palmoil can go with boiled yam, plantain and cassava foods amongst others.
In some homes, palm oil is heated with onions and other aromatics before ingredients are added. In others, it is combined with local spices, vegetables, fish or meat to create dishes whose identity is inseparable from the oil. The oil therefore functions as a culinary bridge across ethnic and regional food traditions.
Women and palmoil are great companions. Traditional palm-oil processing has historically involved substantial labour, with women playing important roles in processing and trading in parts of Nigeria. FAO has documented palm-oil processing as a lucrative activity for women in south-eastern Nigeria. This makes palm oil relevant not only to food heritage but also to discussions about women’s economic participation, rural entrepreneurship and indigenous agricultural knowledge. When a woman processes palm fruit into cooking oil, she is not simply producing an ingredient. She is applying knowledge. When she teaches her daughter how to identify good fruit, process the pulp and prepare a traditional dish, she is transmitting knowledge. When a community gathers around food prepared with locally produced palm oil, culinary knowledge becomes social memory.
This is intangible heritage. A serious Nigerian UNESCO proposal could therefore document the entire farm-to-pot heritage chain. It could begin with the oil palm grove. Then come seed selection, cultivation, care of the palm, harvesting, fruit separation, processing, extraction, storage and trading. Then comes the kitchen: the traditional knowledge of how much oil is appropriate for particular dishes, how it interacts with vegetables and spices, how heat changes its aroma, how it is combined with fish, meat, legumes, yam, plantain and other staples, and how culinary knowledge is transmitted. Then comes the social dimension-festivals, family meals, markets, community gatherings and intergenerational teaching.
It is also important to note that the contemporary challenge of how to preserve traditional knowledge while improving hygiene, food safety, sustainability and economic value becomes paramount. This is exactly the kind of living heritage conversation that UNESCO’s 2003 Convention encourages. UNESCO requires States Parties to identify and define intangible cultural heritage with the participation of the communities concerned, develop inventories and implement safeguarding measures. It also emphasises education, documentation and intergenerational transmission. We can also look the dimension of sustainability.
The African oil palm is native to the West African forest region, but palm-oil production must be managed responsibly so that economic development does not destroy biodiversity and ecosystems.
A Nigerian heritage strategy should therefore include sustainable cultivation, protection of traditional palm groves, responsible harvesting, improved processing technologies, waste management and support for smallholder farmers. The goal should not be to freeze tradition in the past.
It should be to keep the tradition alive. UNESCO’s concept of safeguarding includes documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion and transmission, while allowing heritage practices to continue evolving within communities. Nigeria should begin asking a bigger question about its culinary heritage.
Why should the world know about Italian cooking, Korean jang-making, Egyptian koshary, Côte d’Ivoire’s attiéké production and other food-related traditions while Nigeria’s own extraordinary culinary knowledge remains largely undocumented at the international heritage level?
UNESCO’s current Representative List demonstrates that food-related heritage can be recognised when what is nominated is the cultural practice surrounding food-not merely a commodity or recipe. In 2024, for example, UNESCO inscribed the Skills related to Attiéké production in Côte d’Ivoire, while 2025 brought recognition to Italian cooking, between sustainability and biocultural diversity and Koshary, daily life dish and practices associated with it in Egypt.