Popcorn, Dietary Fiber, and Scabby Bronchioles

I recently moved upstairs to a new office, and it turns out that the kitchen on the 3rd floor has a popcorn machine! Not one of those cheesy air poppers that my dad would buy once a year at a garage sale, but a big monstrosity of glass and metal that you'd see in an old movie theater. I've been eating popcorn almost every day at work ever since moving up here. "What sort of effect is this having on my body? Is popcorn nutritious at all?" I asked myself. "Check Wikipedia!" I answered myself.

Turns out that popcorn has been around for a long long time. Archealogical samples of popcorn have been dated back 1800 years. Before I even got to the nutrition section I assumed it must be good for me if the Native Americans were eating it, but then I don't really know if they also ate deep fried buffalo rinds. Popcorn really is pretty good for you, it's 15% fiber. Of course, the way that Americans eat it, covered in artifically butter flavored grease, detracts a little from the health benefits from eating popcorn.

So it's 15% fiber...so what? What does that really do for you? I hear all the time about how we need to eat more fiber and get more whole grains in our diet, but why? Insoluable fiber just passes through and softens stool (which is good because no one likes anal fissures!) but soluble fiber gets fermented in the large colon and turns into short chain fatty acids that are really good for you. Luckily it also turns into flatulence, which makes me giggle. So ha! Farting really is good for you.

Back to the concept of popcorn only being good for you if you're not putting a ton of artificially-butter-flavored-grease on it...you don't have to worry about the affects of butter flavor on yourself, but also on the poor sods who are putting it in your microwave popcorn. A chemical named diacetyl is often used for butter flavoring, and it causes a condition called Popcorn Lung in workers who are over exposed. It causes the the bronchioles, the little tubes in your lungs that let air get to your air sacs, to grow closed. Gruesome! It's often misdiagnosed as emphysema. Only treatment? Lung transplant. Next time your annoying coworker cooks up that microwave popcorn, make sure to warn them.

Don't go getting all angry at diacetyl, however. It's a naturally occurring byproduct of yeast fermentation. Still, it's a shame to think that when it's taken out of it's natural context and introduced to popcorn, it's can cost some poor yokel a lung. Crazy.