When I first read the headlines on Google News this morning, thought for sure I'd be giving up yet another vice. But was heartened to read this on the AP newsfeed:
"Microwave popcorn fans worried about the potential for lung disease from butter flavoring fumes should know this: The sole reported case of the disease in a non-factory worker involves a man who popped the corn every day and inhaled from the bag [emphasis mine].
"He really liked microwave popcorn. He made two or three bags every day for 10 years," said William Allstetter, a spokesman for National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver where the man's respiratory illness was diagnosed.
"He told us he liked the smell of popcorn, so he would open and inhale from freshly popped bags," Allstetter said. And the patient said he did this for a decade.
This fact from popcorn.org: Americans consume 17 billion quarts of popped popcorn annually or 54 quarts per man, woman and child. So after the ten years this guy gorged himself on popcorn, the folks who consumed the other nearly-200 billion quarts are apparently doing OK. I wish half the things I ate came with those kinds of odds.
You sniff/snort anything three times a day for ten years, you're likely to get sick.
Believe our medical- and health-related resources and "policing" are better utilized elsewhere ... say E. coli and produce (yeah, I still buy and eat produce).
Full Disclosure: No popcorn industry affiliation of any kind, unless you count the 32-pack of Redenbacher's Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn I bought at Costco today.