It's similar to acetone, the main solvent in nail polish remover. Thanks for your link.
Posted on 09/05/2007 8:12:21 PM PDT by neverdem
A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a 53-year-old Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants.
Lung specialists and even a top industry official say the case, the first of its kind, raises serious concerns about the safety of microwave butter-flavored popcorn.
“We’ve all been working on the workplace safety side of this, but the potential for consumer exposure is very concerning,” said John B. Hallagan, general counsel for the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States, a trade association of companies that make butter flavorings for popcorn producers. “Are there other cases out there? There could be.”
A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency was considering the case as part of a review of the safety of diacetyl, which adds the buttery taste to many microwave popcorns, including Orville Redenbacher and Act II.
Producers of microwave popcorn said their products were safe.
“We’re incredibly interested in learning more about this case. However, we are confident that our product is safe for consumers’ normal everyday use in the home,” said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for ConAgra Foods, the nation’s largest maker of microwave popcorn.
Ms. Childs said ConAgra planned to remove diacetyl from its microwave popcorn products “in the near future.”
Pop Weaver, another large microwave popcorn producer, has already taken diacetyl out of its popcorn bags “because of consumer concerns” but not because the company believes the...
--snip--
“I said to him, ‘This is a very weird question, but bear with me. But are you around a lot of popcorn?’ ” Dr. Rose asked. “His jaw dropped and he said, ‘How could you possibly know that about me? I am Mr. Popcorn. I love popcorn.’ ”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That stuff tastes terrible anyway. I can’t see why anyone would eat it.
It's similar to acetone, the main solvent in nail polish remover. Thanks for your link.
I prefer plain popcorn with real butter, I stopped eating that crap months ago.
Now signing on victims of White Lung for class action suit.
Payout: One free case of popcorn.
Erin Brokovich, call your office.
Don’t worry. As the corn crops are being wasted on ethanol and the prices go thru the roof, this will become a curiosity disease........
You’re supposed to EAT popcorn.....not snort it!
Damn you Orville Redenbacher!
the best i’ve tasted was with coconut oil.
I actually bought some old-fashioned pop on the stove popcorn the other day. The taste difference is phenomenal! I had forgotten what real popcorn tasted like........
The Lawyers will reap millions in cash; the "plaintiffs" will get coupons, as always.....
Microwave popcorn is stuffed with transfats and chemicals. It is a terribly unhealthy mix.
Yeah, it's awfully hard to suck thru a straw.......
some kind of strept infection sequela, probably
Diacetyl (2,3-Butanedione) shown at left, is another ketone flavorant and is very important in providing the rich or heated note in butter flavor. Diacetyl is also the primary flavor compound in starter cultures and distillates which are used in producing cultured butter. It is a volatile yellow liquid ketone with a cheese-like smell. It is, in fact, the molecule that gives butter its characteristic flavor and the molecule you should have in mind when you smell it; for when cream is incubated with bacteria, they produce some butanedione. After incubation, the cream is churned. This breaks down the sheaths around the fat droplets, and they coalesce into a soft, solid mass. Sheep’s milk and goat’s milk are richer in short-chain trigylcerides than cow’s milk, and cheese made from them (such as Roquefort) is richer in pungent molecules.
Diacetyl and acetoin produced by lactic streptococci are flavors characteristic of butter, buttermilk and sour cream. Diacetyl also imparts a yellow colour to dairy products; it is formed from citrate via oxaloacetate and pyruvate which is de-toxified to form diacetyl and acetoin. An essential step is transport of citrate into the cell by an inducible citrate permease. Natural diacetyl can also be obtained from starter distillate, a by-product from the manufacture of dairy starter cultures.
snipped from
http://webexhibits.org/butter/compounds-methylKetones.html
“I actually bought some old-fashioned pop on the stove popcorn the other day. The taste difference is phenomenal! I had forgotten what real popcorn tasted like........”
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Jiffy Pop. If it was good enough for our Covered Wagon, Pioneer ancestors, it should be good enough for us.
Isn’t the Pathfinder figure holding one in Emmanuel Leutze’s “Westward the Course of Empire Makes its Way?”
I hear the Pilgrims were first to be introduced to popcorn by the Indians at the first Thanksgiving. What I’ve wondered all these years is, “How did they pop it?”..........
In a regular old pot, probably with some good old trans-fat-free lard. Easy! (I don’t know what the Indians might have used as oil or if they just threw the cobs on the fire and played catch.)
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