Butter Flavored Popcorn Ingredient Causes Lung Cancer

The FDA announced that Diacetyl, the ingredient in microwave popcorn that gives it its buttery taste, does cause lung cancer. Multiple workers in factories that produce butter-flavored popcorn have come down with the life threatening lung disease (now known as 'popcorn lung') and at least one consumer has as well.

Many people don't know that the bag used in microwave popcorn also contains a suspected carcinogen, Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. PFOA is a primary ingredient in Teflon and is also used to coat the inside of microwave popcorn bags as well as fast food packaging materials to make them grease resistant (typically these packaging items have a glossy, wax-like surface).

These two chemicals highlight some of the dangers of eating pre-packaged foods. If you love microwave popcorn, there is a way to make it with a plain paper bag, popcorn, a couple of staples and some oil. Check out this recipe. I use this all the time in order to avoid all the salt in pre-packaged microwave popcorn and this works very well.