Don’t eat popcorn at home, it might kill you! Better to eat your price-and-volume inflated corn kernels at your local ‘plex. At least according to this article in the Washington Post (‘Popcorn Concerns Put Work Safety Back on Agenda‘), which tells us that microwave home popcorn are coated in a chemical that can cause cancer:

Federal regulators have known since 2000 that diacetyl was suspected of increasing incidences of a disease called bronchiolitis obliterans in workers who inhaled it. The condition, now known as popcorn lung disease, causes irreversible damage to the airways.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found links between the disease and the chemical. The problem seemed to intensify, industry experts said, after popcorn makers started using extra-buttery and theater-style popcorn in the 1990s, increasing workers’ exposure to the chemical.

Scary, isn’t it? Not that they put real butter in cinema popcorn either, mind you. But should you fall ill or choke on a popcorn you can try to sue Regal or Carmike instead of some obscure microwaved popcorn manufacturer. (Yummy popcorn photo from Clan KcKinnon’s blog)