Your Microwave Popcorn can Kill You... Seriously...

Microwave Popcorn, those words inspire joy in me, and I love the stuff. When I stop and think about it, the entire experience of making a bag of microwavable popcorn is very visceral. You have the smell of the popcorn, but also the satisfying popping of kernels. That's my favorite part actually, well, besides eating it of course. It starts with a single pop, and a few other cautious reports issuing from within the bag but within seconds there is a symphony of syncopated pops. Sound is so essential to the popcorn making experience that it is the measure by which we know the bag is ready. 

It emerges from the microwave completely transformed. Where once there lay a flat, compact, dense mass there is now a large bag, light and billowy and belching hot steam from it's vent. Sweet, chemical laden death steam... Wait a minute what? That's right ladies and gentlemen, some of the butter substitutes in our microwaved pop is packed with the flavoring goodness of Diacetyl. A chemical which, among other things, has caused the destruction of the lungs of at least three people who were heavy eaters of the stuff, and countless workers at the factory. The even crazier part is that this chemical was banned a few years ago. But the companies, who are now using "Diacetyl substitutes" failed to notice and/or mention that the byproduct of heating up their weird new Diacetyl-free concoction in the microwave is... DIACETYL!

I read a very creepy article about this today, and the creepiest thing about it was the way the gentleman from the "Flavors and Extracts Manufacturer Association" and other people they labeled "Flavorists" talked about these fake flavorings (can't call them butter of course). Apparently they are trying to figure out ways to use "starter distillates" to create that "rich butter flavor consumers love so much." Words like that make me shiver, and they make me damned sure that from here on out when I buy microwaved popcorn I am going to buy it without any butter and just add my own. Real butter, 100% real congealed cow-tit juice, no Tri-di-bi-ethyl-ribo-lose for me!

What disturbs me most of all about these fancy lab created foods and altered fats is how little we know about them. Right now food scientists are alchemists in the lab, adding hydrogen to fats to change their composition, 'making flavors' and adding all sorts of funk to old, naturally occurring products that have been in use for countless generations. We've actually seen it already. Margarine is nothing but vegetable oil pumped full of hydrogen to make it solid. Big deal right? So what you ask? Well, that hydrogen changes the fat completely, making it into a dreaded artery clogging cholesterol clutching health risk. Should have stuck with butter.

When I was younger I worked at the Youth Fair a couple of years, selling that roasted corn all day and night. And we used some stuff called "Whirl" their slogan was "Butter Taste and Better" weird liquefied butter substitute that has no butter in it,that's what I call it. To this day I am grossed out by it. Personally I like butter. I admit country crock sure is easy to spread compared to it, but I prefer real butter. The Amish are cool with it, and those guys aren't cool with a lot of things. That goes a long way in my book...

Until the day someone holds these guys accountable or changes the laws, the secret in your Pop Secret might be  bronchiolitis obliterans.