Furth and Fortune blog by Will Murray

Eating a bag of freshly popped, buttery popcorn while watching a movie on demand or DVD is a guilty pleasure of mine. You have to be careful though about the type of popcorn you use though. I’ve tried a variety of different methods, brands, and flavors, and I’ve settled on Act II butter flavor as my favorite microwave popcorn (the plain butter flavor, not the extreme or movie theatre style—and no, I’m not worried about the deadly butter flavoring). Compared to the other popcorn out there, it seems to be about the best in ingredients and nutritional value, and it only takes 2:35 to pop. Easy.

I was a little concerned when I opened up the last two boxes of popcorn and found that the buttery goodness inside of some of the packages had leaked out into the plastic wrapper. The two 12-pack boxes were purchased at different times (December 2007 and January 2008), but from the same Wal-Mart store #3652 in West Sacramento. In each box, one of the bags was unusable—the buttery goo had spread all over the outside of the packages. Even if they were safe to eat, I’d hate to clean the microwave after that stuff melted inside it. The other bags where oozing had occurred were only slightly oily, and they tasted and smelled fine.

Tags: Act II, butter flavor, consumer alerts, defects, microwaves, popcorn

I love chocolate! (Big surprise, right? A lot of people love it.) If you read my blog regularly, you probably know that supporting organizations that save rain forests and ones that promote fair/equitable trade are very important to me. Naturally a company that makes chocolate bars from equitably traded cocoa and donates profits to save the rain forests sounds like a win-win-win idea to me. That’s exactly what Endangered Species Chocolate (chocolatebar.com) does, and my family and I love them!

I was concerned after recently reading the following information:

About 70 percent of the world’s chocolate is grown in west and central Africa. The lead content of cocoa beans is low, but that of manufactured cocoa and chocolate products is among the highest of any food. How so? No one is sure, but several major cocoa bean-producing countries in Africa used leaded gasoline until recently, and a few still do. It seems likely the toxic metal is introduced at some point, probably multiple points, during cocoa bean shipping and processing. Is there enough to worry about? The Dagoba Organic Chocolate company of Ashland, Oregon, thought so or anyway did after a little prodding from the Food and Drug Administration. Though the company wouldn’t divulge test results, it recalled 40,000 pounds of its high-end chocolate products this spring after some were found to exceed FDA standards for lead.

Since Nigeria, the place where Endangered Species Chocolate is grown and produced, is in western central Africa, it would seem like their chocolate might be at considerable risk of lead contamination. That would be heartbreaking to this chocoholic. I wrote to the company (gotta love the Internet!), and I received a very nice response back that I would like to share (only editing out some personal info). It certainly put my fears to rest.

Tags: Africa, candies, chocolate, chocolate bars, cocoa, Dagoba Organic Chocolate, Dominican Republic, Endangered Species Chocolate, equitable trade, fair trade, FDA, Halloween, health, lead, Nigeria, organics, rain forests, USDA

Can microwaving butter flavored popcorn or a frozen TV dinner destroy your lungs and kill you?

Possibly.

However, no government agency appears interested in finding out—not even for the poor workers who are exposed to diacetyl, the synthetic butter flavoring agent. Diacetyl is used in margarine, faux butters, cooking oil, lard, and in thousands of frozen products.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared diacetyl back in the 1950s and 80s as a food additive, because 1) it occurs naturally in real butter, and 2) they tested it by ingestion (eating it). The problem appears to be that when diacetyl is breathed into the body, such as when you open that steaming hot bag of microwave popcorn, diacetyl produces a number of toxins that are very harmful to the lungs. So harmful, that “dozens of workers at a microwave popcorn plant in Jasper, Mo., developed a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans, which destroys the lungs” [Baltimore Sun]

Since the FDA already cleared diacetyl as a butter flavoring, and since it seems to only test things you eat (as opposed to inhaling), they don’t want to run any more tests. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has conducted a few studies, but it is not releasing the information to the public. The EPA is responsible for air quality in the U.S.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), members of Congress, and the Teamsters and other unions requested the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to set standards for workplace exposure. So far, no such standards have been set.

It looks like my mother’s good advice rings true: eat a variety of foods, and don’t go overboard on any one. She also advises me to eat my veggies, don’t stay up so late, and to drink plenty of water each day. She’s so smart.

Tags: butter flavor, death, diseases, EPA, FDA, flavorings, foods, governments, health, lungs, microwaves, OSHA, popcorn, toxin, TV dinner