#685 Unpopped Off

So I saw this interesting article in a Seattle paper. Turns out people are dying, so this is no laughing matter, but how they are dying seems like some bad horror movie premise.
They are dying from butter flavor.
That’s right, I said butter flavor. Not butter, as in high cholesterol and hardening of the arteries. Not butter, as in heart attacks and high blood pressure strokes. Not even butter, as in dying on the toilet with an impacted Elvis bowel.
Nope, butter flavor.
Seems the food additive diacetyl, which is used to provide that buttery flavor they put in microwave popcorn, can kill in sufficient doses if you inhale enough of it.
Yes, inhale it. Apparently, it’s okay if you just eat it.
But popcorn factory workers have been popping off at an alarming rate and diacetyl seems to be to blame. And, the problem is, no government agency has the salt to deal with it.
The science indicates that inhaling enough diacetyl leads to a condition know as Bronchiolitis Obliterans, which, essentially, is the blockage of the smallest air passageways in your lungs, which prevents necessary molecules like, oh, oxygen getting by.
The result is suffocation and death. What a way to go.
Did your dad die in the war? No. He died from inhaling buttery flavor.
The story gets worse. A simple point source like popcorn factories can be dealt with. But now the United Food and Commercial Workers Union is after the feds to regulate cooking additives that contain diacetyl. Chefs that frequently use spray on buttery Pam and other low-cal non-stick flavor additives in restaurants are also at risk.
Worse still, the feds can’t agree who should regulate it. OSHA is moving as slow as a glacier melting before global warming. Perhaps I should say slow as a cold stick of butter.
The FDA says it’s only concerned with food people eat and drink. They say they can’t regulate foods that people inhale.
I wish I was making the last part up.
But when it comes to bureaucracy and responsibility, that’s the phrase that sums up that last unpopped greasy kernel of truth.
“It’s not my department.”
America, ya gotta love it.