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[Narrator] For almost a century, popcorn has been
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the predominant movie theater snack.
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But how did our love affair with these
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buttery popped kernels even start?
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There’s more to understand about
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popcorn than just nostalgia.
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The food has an unusual history.
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I remember going to the theaters with my mother
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and she had her method and it would always embarrass me.
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But now I’m, like, I’m that guy.
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We would always ask them to fill the bucket halfway,
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go butter it, come back, fill the rest,
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butter the top of that for even butter distribution.
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And I feel like I do that, I do that now,
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as an adult, if there’s time.
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Well, I used to have braces as a kid,
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so it’s like the forbidden food,
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so it’s always had that special place for me.
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Like the unattainable. [laughs]
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So there’s a particular smell that comes from popcorn.
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It’s just like, it takes you back to the good times.
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It’s just, any positive is the smell of it.
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They get you as soon as you walk in the door.
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It’s the smell, gets me every time.
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It’s just coming out of the popper
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and I’m like, I gotta, I gotta have it.
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I always keep it in my plastic so that
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it doesn’t fly out in case it’s windy.
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And it stays warm when I get home, as you can see.
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There we go. I’m a purist.
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I’m just butter guy, 100%.
01:49
[Narrator] Movie theater popcorn’s popularity
01:50
has a lot to do with Flavacol, a seasoning used
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to give popcorn its signature buttery taste.
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The fine salt flakes stick to the kernels
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before they are popped, resulting in
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a perfect, evenly buttered flavor.
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So, I have, my tongue is unique,
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but there are other people with tongues like mine.
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I have a series of large taste buds
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on my tongue, all over my tongue, actually.
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You could be of the 25% of people
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who actually do have large taste buds
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and you could be a super taster and not even know it.
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Usually gonna put 10 grams.
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Whoa, you can really smell it.
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I was wondering about that,
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once it hydrated, what I would smell.
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I’m just gonna pour some in my hand so I can taste it.
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[playfully suspenseful music]
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It’s gonna probably burn my tongue
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but I’m gonna do this for you.
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‘Kay, the first thing that I taste is salt
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and the second thing that I taste
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is actually a buttery flavor
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and the third thing that I taste
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is a little bit of bitterness
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and maybe a little bit of a nutty flavor.
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The flavor sits on my tongue and it travels
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up the roof of my mouth and down my throat,
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it’s kind of weird that way.
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The recommended daily allowance of sodium for us,
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based on the USDA, is 2,400 milligrams
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and in one teaspoon of Flavacol,
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there’s actually 2,740 milligrams of sodium,
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which is 114% of the recommended daily allowance.
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What people know is that it’s mostly salt,
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but what they don’t know is
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what are the artificial ingredients
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and what are Yellow #5 and #6 made from.
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[playfully suspenseful music]
03:58
[upbeat jazzy music]
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[Narrator] The oldest known ears
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of popcorn are about 5,600 years old
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[upbeat jazzy music]
04:09
and they were discovered in the back cave
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of West Central Mexico in the late 1940s.
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Pre-Colombian civilizations in Central and South America
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ate popcorn and the Aztec language even has
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a word that describes the sound
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of many kernels popping at once: totopoca.
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After the Spanish invaded the Aztec empire
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in the 16th century, popcorn spread around the world.
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[upbeat jazzy music]
04:34
Popcorn became popular in the Eastern
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United States by the early 19th century,
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sold under the names pearl or nonpareil.
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With the invention of the steam-powered popcorn stand
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in 1885, the snack quickly became favored
04:47
as American street food, sold at circuses and fairs.
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♪ Let’s all go to the lobby ♪
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♪ Let’s all go to the lobby ♪
04:57
[Sarah] Popcorn hasn’t always been
04:59
popular in the movie theater
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because they didn’t think it was fancy enough
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and it was a snack of the peasant,
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so I think vendors were probably
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out on the street selling it and people were
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carrying it into the theater with them
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to snack on while they watched the movies.
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♪ So let’s all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat ♪
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[film reel clicking]
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[Narrator] As the movie business started to
05:20
suffer during the Great Depression,
05:22
theater owners realized that
05:23
selling popcorn could keep them afloat.
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This financial model still exists today,
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with theaters prioritizing concessions as a way
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to make up for the lack of profit from ticket sales.
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[electric humming] [popping]
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And with the widespread adoption of microwave popcorn,
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the snack grew to a scale to meet a mass consumer market.
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It might be difficult to see
05:44
anything in common between popcorn and vaping,
05:47
but the connection has to do with
05:48
the flavor-creating chemical called diacetyl,
05:51
which can be safely consumed but not inhaled.
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So people will use something like diacetyl
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to provide a buttery aroma to popcorn
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so that they can take the butter out of there.
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So, they’re gonna that aromatic without getting
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the calories that come alongside it with butter.
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Diacetyl, when used in making popcorn,
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becomes airborne and connects with the oxygen
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and then we breathe it into our lungs.
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Popcorn lung was discovered when some folks
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working in a popcorn factory making microwave popcorn
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became ill from the over-exposure of diacetyl.
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[Narrator] In 2000, eight former microwave popcorn
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factory workers developed a rare lung disease
06:33
called bronchiolitis obliterans or popcorn lung.
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Popcorn lung is a condition in which
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otherwise young, healthy individuals come in
06:43
with multiple discrete punctate areas of the lung
06:45
that had been destroyed or developed infections in them.
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And we believe its an infectious process related to
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or an inflammatorious process related to inhaling the vapor.
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[Narrator] Almost all microwave popcorn manufacturers
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promise to remove diacetyl from their products
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but popcorn lung has made news
07:02
more recently in vaping-related illnesses.
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Diacetyl is often added to e-use liquid
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by e-cigarette companies to compliment flavors
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such as vanilla, maple, and coconut.
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Diacetyl can be used in anything
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that you want to enhance flavor,
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and e-cigarettes, the way that they’re created,
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is to have fanciful flavors that may be fruity or nutty
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or sweet or even a popcorn-flavored one, of all things.
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And that created an instance where people
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are actually inhaling unknown food-based ingredients
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that were never developed to be inhaled.
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[Narrator] Whether we’re interacting
07:41
with natural or artificial flavors,
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what’s happening in our brains when we’re eating popcorn?
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When we put foods into our mouths, we’re chewing the food
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and the air is being pumped backwards out of our nostrils,
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so those inputs are brought together in the brain
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and we don’t really know how to separate them.
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We’re also getting information from textures,
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even the temperature of the food.
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Those things are coming together and forming
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a more complex picture that we think of as flavor.
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Flavors and aromas have this quality
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where they’re able to trigger memories very powerfully.
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When we’re eatin’ popcorn,
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despite us not really thinking about it,
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we’re getting these positive associations with it.
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We’re remembering some of those times that we felt so good.
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We’re feeling good without even
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knowing why we’re feeling good.
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[Sarah] Popcorn has been paired with
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some of these unusual chemicals
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because people didn’t wanna use real butter.
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Real butter is more expensive
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and so, they were trying to maximize
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the amount of money they could make on popcorn.
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So, they’ve changed the color
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with artificial color to make it look buttery
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and they’ve added artificial flavors
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to make it taste buttery.
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[upbeat jazzy music]
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[Narrator] But today’s food trends lean towards
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natural flavorings like using non-dairy butter
08:59
or seaweed to mimic the taste of popcorn.
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Does popcorn’s strange chemical-infused past
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fit our health conscious future?
09:07
I think the future of food design
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is multi-sensory in nature, so foods,
09:13
I think, will soon be designed taking
09:16
our other senses into account as well.
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So, you can imagine, for instance,
09:20
popcorn that has a certain coloration to it
09:23
and all of a sudden, it tastes sweet
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without us needing to put sugar in there.
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[Sarah] As often as people wanna try something new,
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they also like to have their old favorites
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and I believe popcorn with butter on it
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may be one of those old favorites that we can all
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eat and remember from our childhood.