My latest Victual Reality column looks at how perfectly wonderful foods like corn and butter get twisted up by food-industry marketers and flavor engineers, confusing people and often sending them scurrying in search of dubious, unhealthy, artificial substitutes -- which the food industry is only too willing to provide.
As if on cue, out comes a New York Times piece on the horrors of microwave popcorn. Those unpleasant fumes that cloud the office when one of your co-workers pops a bag of Orville Redenbacher into the microwave? They really are noxious.
(Thanks to reader Erica Stephan for alerting us to this.)
The Times reports that in California food-flavoring factories (dear God, remember when food's flavor came from farms?), workers have been turning up with a lung condition called bronchiolitis obliterans, "for which there is no cure or treatment." The article adds:
Usually found only in people who are poisoned by chemical fires or chemical warfare or in lung transplant patients, bronchiolitis obliterans renders its victims unable to exert even a little energy without becoming winded or faint.
The common denominator in such cases is exposure to fumes from a substance called diacetyl, which turns out to be a natural byproduct of the fermentation process. Evidently, guys in lab coats have discovered that diacetyl, when isolated by who knows what industrial process, gives food a "buttery" flavor.
(Funny, I've discovered that butter does the same thing, with no need for industrial isolation. Maybe I should set up shop as a flavor scientist?)
It also turns out that in vapor form, diacetyl can obliterate one's lungs. The Times article cites all manner of foot-dragging by the flavor industry and the government agencies that monitor it to actually do anything about the menace -- concerns about which date back to the 1970s.
Meanwhile, the food industry has been blithely dumping diacetyl into microwave popcorn and margarine. Might the fumes created by nuked popcorn, or from margarine used as a sauteing medium, be harming consumers?
The Times piece doesn't address that factor. The Baltimore Sun did last year, though, reporting that all relevant federal agencies had declined to study the issue.
"The problem with a chemical like diacetyl is that the route of exposure -- inhalation -- does not fit easily the jurisdiction of any of these agencies [FDA, etc.]," a law professor told the Sun. Oh -- so it must not be dangerous?
Even if the Times neglected this angle, I do love the way the paper ended its piece. An industry shill makes the following jaw-dropping statement on why diacetyl must remain in popcorn and margarine: "There is no single substance that can replace diacetyl, because it is the single substance most responsible for the 'buttery note.'"
No substitute for the butter substitute, eh? What's a few workers' lungs, anyway?
Comes the stinging retort from California assemblywoman Sally Lieber, who's sponsoring a bill to protect the workers:
We are talking about a potentially devastating disease caused by buttering flavor. And there are alternatives out there. Including butter.
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Comments View as Flat
Ron Steenblik Posted 12:58 am
11 May 2007
Crikey!
Who would have thunk that something as seemingly innocuous as artificial butter flavoring could be dangerous?
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David Roberts Posted 1:51 am
11 May 2007
Ha!
"There is no single substance that can replace diacetyl, because it is the single substance most responsible for the 'buttery note.'"
That made me laugh out loud. Good stuff!
grist.org
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Liz Borkowski Posted 2:41 am
11 May 2007
For more buttery non-goodness ...
My colleagues and I have been working on this issue for a while, and it's good to see it finally getting some attention (in Congress as well as in the media). We've got all the latest developments at The Pump Handle blog, and lots of background at DefendingScience.org.
There's obviously a serious hazard in the workplace, but we really don't know how much risk people run by popping microwave popcorn at home. We've repeatedly asked the EPA to divulge the results of their study on microwave popcorn emissions, and they keep telling us it's going to be published in a scholarly journal sometime soon.
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Sam Wells Posted 3:37 am
11 May 2007
Diacetyl & Beer
Certain beers are noted for a hint of diacetyl which is mainly due to the yeast and some chemical reactions. Micro- and home-brewers don't add the stuff, as that would be cheating. It takes a lot of work to get that buttery flavor. Shame, the popcorn industry has to ruin a good thing by using tons of the refined product. Like any refined product, it just can't be very good for you. Have a great weekend and if you run into a nice buttery beer or wine, enjoy. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:38 am
11 May 2007
nature of the hazard
So the first question I have is whether the danger is one of chemical toxicity or is more "mechanical" in nature? If it's a chemical interaction, then there's a strong basis for banning the stuff altogether. However, the problem might be more like silicosis or asbestosis. Those are problems caused by inflammation due to small particles lodged in the lungs. If the raw diacetyl is a fine powder, say, then the problem might really be just confined to the factory, rather than posing a chronic low-level hazard to the consumer.
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Dawn Pillsbury Posted 7:19 am
11 May 2007
Diacetyl evil
I knew that anything with so persisent a stink couldn't be good news. Ever try to get that smell out of a microwave?
Flavor engineering - another field to pull your investments from.
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Sam Wells Posted 5:08 am
13 May 2007
Beyond Evil
I'll let the reader Google the word "diacetyl" and see what you get. It can be pure, a tartaric acid, or in a powdered form in another chemical compound. Like the recent melamine scrap brouhaha with pet food, much of it originates in China and is imported in bulk shipments.
I think we'll find out that melamine and diacetyl is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. In the food ingredient listed on most consumer products, only those used in significant amounts (maybe 95 to 99% by weight volume) are reported; NON-FOOD CHEMICALS ARE OFTEN NOT.
Aluminum silicate keeps powders powdery and strange emulsifiers keep liquids from separating. I wish I knew more about the artificial flavoring and food chemistry issues, but hey man, we're eating that stuff! Stabilizers, flavoring agents, acids, emulsifiers, insecticides, rodenticides, dyes, hydrogenated vegetable oil for lubricating food processing machinery, residual cleaning solutions, and all kinds of crap are in many packaged products. Interestingly, some of this crap even finds is way into products that claim to be "organic."
It's enough to make you want to scrimp of the budget and only buy from trusted farmers market people. Tomatoes - we know they are picked green and hard as can be, then set in cold storage sheds and pumped with ethylene gas to ripen them and a nice chemical soup to make sure the bugs don't take over. Orange juice, hah, that's the smelliest factory you ever saw because much of their produce is rejects for the picked fruit market, and are all "rejects." They really have to work to stabilize the product and get rid of that nasty rotten orange smell. It's all done with chemicals, gases, washes, steam, cold sheds, powers, and stuff you'd never dream of.
One of the worst is beer. Industrial beer (as opposed to microbrew and homebrew) has to the pasturized and then somehow stabilized; the list of treatments for canned beer is even more extensive - since beer is slightly acidic and would otherwise eat through the can. Naw, industrial sausage is even worse. It's usually soaked in nitrates so it doesn't rot. Sulfites, now that's a good one! Many people are allergic to sulfites. Remember Red Dye #1, heck man, that turned out to cause cancer. I still won't eat a Maraschino Cherry to this day. One has to wonder how much Global Warming is caused in the name of all these wonderful chemicals and food treatments.
/sammie
Onward through the fog
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germ Posted 4:39 am
21 May 2007
When you concentrate something...
The FDA defaults a chemical to GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) when it occurs naturally in food. Diacetyl is the flavor of butter no other compound naturally occurring in butter imparts the exact flavor of butter other than diacetyl. Naturally occurring from the milk enzymes and fats during churning, or man made makes no difference; it is the same chemical. The problem is concentration. Workers are inhaling concentrated diacetyl. The concentration is what has made it deadly. Many flavor compounds that occur naturally in food pose similar risks. Here is another one `Allyl isothiocyanate' AKA mustard. It's MSDS for the pure substance says "HARMFUL: Poison. Experimental teratogen, tumorigen, neoplastigen. Allergen. Severe irritant. Very destructive of mucous membranes." but the FDA says it is GRAS when used in foods. Many essential oils are also extremely toxic: ginger, cinnamon, rosemary, licorice, onion, garlic, cherries, almonds, black pepper...
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CathyYingling Posted 12:43 am
24 Sep 2007
Pop Weaver has removed diacetyl from its flavoring
I wanted to let everyone who's concerned about this issue know that Weaver Popcorn has already removed diacetyl from the flavoring in its microwave popcorn brands, Pop Weaver and Trail's End. People who want to avoid diacetyl have an option, that's available now. Pop Weaver is sold in mass market retailers, discount stores and select grocery stores; Trail's End is sold through Boy Scout councils.
Cathy Yingling, for Weaver Popcorn
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