If you own stock in any sort of microwave popcorn companies, now’s the time to sell, before the “popcorn worker’s lung” panic sets in:

Exposure to synthetic butter in food production and flavoring plants has been linked to hundreds of cases of workers whose lungs have been damaged or destroyed. Diacetyl is found naturally in milk, cheese, butter and other products.

Heated diacetyl becomes a vapor and, when inhaled over a long period of time, seems to lead the small airways in the lungs to become swollen and scarred. Sufferers can breathe in deeply, but they have difficulty exhaling. The severe form of the disease is called bronchiolitis obliterans or “popcorn workers’ lung,” which can be fatal.

As it happens, the very smell of microwaved butter-flavored popcorn tends to gross me out, if not make me outright sick. I never touch the stuff, and would dread when someone in home or office would nuke up a batch of the stuff (I’m okay with the non-butter flavored bags). In light of this info, it seems my sense of smell was coordinating with my survival instinct!

I hope panic versus the Orville Redenbachers of the food universe does set in. Maybe I’ll never have to endure that smelly stuff ever again.