Pop Aye

I like popcorn.  Always have.  When I worked the midnight shift, we were quite the little popcorn gourmets with our various poppers and oils and flavorings and imported sea salts from the Mediterranean.  Then we'd stuff popcorn down our necks like kids at the Bijou on a Saturday afternoon Stooge-a-thon.

So, popcorn is good for you, being whole grain.  What's bad for you is all the salt and fake butter flavor they add in the factories.

About that fake butter flavor:  I'm sure you read "Chemically Speaking," the online newsletter of the U of Florida's Pesticide Information Office.  I know I do.  And so you surely saw this: 

 As mentioned before in Chemically Speaking, imitation butter flavoring has proven hazardous to those people working with it in an occupational setting.  Now, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been petitioned to enact an emergency temporary standard to prevent worker fatalities related to fake butter flavoring.  In a letter to the OSHA’s director, Elaine Chao, 40 occupational health physicians and scientists asked for a standard to protect workers from diacetyl, a chemical with butter-flavor characteristics that is used in many foods.  The group that sent the letter has contended that OSHA has done nothing to remedy the problem, even though lung diseases caused by diacetyl have been known for over four years.  (Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News, 7/31/06).  

Poppin' Fresh!

Well, then. Maybe it's better to skip the diacetyl and add your own real butter or melted cheese or whatever else you might like that comes out of a cow, not a test tube.  And that, my friends, is the beauty of this, my favorite method of poppin' them kernels, the vaunted Presto 04820 PopLite Hot Air Popper.  It even has a little measuring cup for the corn, and you can use that cup to melt you some butter whilst the corn's a-poppin'!  Or not.  You make the call on that. 

The beauty part of all this is, you can't find plain natural microwave popcorn.  Even the ones that say they are "natural" are about as natural as William Shatner's hair.  So take it from me, popcorn lovers.  Drop 18 semolians on this device, get some nice Orville Redenbacher corn, and get ready to snack.

May I have some of that, please?