Money Listens

I love O The Oprah Magazine. Sometimes I get in the longest line at the grocery store so I can have more time to peruse the latest edition. In March, 2008, an article warns about the danger of some microwave popcorns. The chemical diacetyl, which adds the buttery taste to many microwave popcorns, is the problem. When heated to high temperatures diacetyl vaporizes and becomes toxic. One man who loved to breath in the hot buttery steam directly from the freshly popped bag contracted a serious respiratory disease. But he had a two-bag-a-day habit for 10 years! Due to the possible health risk, some manufacturers have dropped diacetyl from their products. The article suggests waiting until the bag is cool and opening it under your stove’s exhaust fan. Yeah, right.

But the real danger of microwave popcorn is its cost. Did you know you can pop your own corn for a fraction of what Orville’s costs? Take a regular brown paper lunch bag, add 1/3 cup of popcorn kernels, fold down the top a few times, and stick it in your microwave. Cook it however long you cook the commercial bags. Voila, you have a low-calorie, low-cost snack. Eat it right out of the bag with no diacetyl mess. Do let the bag cool first. It heats up just like the commercial bags.

If you like the buttery taste, you can add your own real butter. And if you want to get carbon footprint friendly, dump your popcorn in a bowl and save the bag to reuse another time. Don’t forget the salt.

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Food and Stuff That Tastes Good. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.