Microwave Popcorn Can Be Deadly

It turns out the butter flavor in most microwave popcorn might be bad for you. Anyone surprised at that?

"The chemical -- diacetyl -- adds buttery taste. Government worker safety investigators have linked exposure to the synthetic butter to the sometimes fatal destruction of the lungs of hundreds of workers in food production and flavoring factories."

"Despite the worker safety findings -- and despite scores of jury decisions and settlements awarding millions of dollars to workers who sued after having their lungs destroyed by exposure to diacetyl -- neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Consumer Product Safety Commission have investigated. The FDA years ago declared the chemical safe for consumption. Labels on almost all products containing it call it a flavoring and only rarely do the labels mention diacetyl."

It's not clear if it's bad for consumers, but it's clearly bad for workers and would you want to support a food that kills the people making it? "And while Pop Weaver has dropped diacetyl from its product, it remains in widespread use in thousands of other consumer products, including the microwave popcorn brands Orville Redenbacher and Act II" (both from ConAgra).