3

I made popcorn by putting a layer of olive oil at the bottom of a steel pot, putting in the kernels and cooking it on high heat for a minute or so. When it started popping, I noticed that smoke with an acrid smell started coming out of the pot in big quantities. I tried not to breathe it and made all of the popcorn pop.

I then ate all of the popcorn, and realized that the smoke might have come from the oil burning up. The popcorn had a bit of that flavor too.

I'm concerned about possible health issues arising from this. Was the popcorn I just ate poisonous? Is there a risk of developing cancer involved in eating food that has been cooked this way (I've eaten popcorn made like this a few other times, but the smoke was never this apparent)?

Should I use a different oil, or is there no safe oil for this kind of cooking?

Sean Hart
  • 6,130
  • 20
  • 28
kettlepot
  • 209
  • 1
  • 2
  • 5

3 Answers3

14

Olive oil has a notoriously low smoke point. If you're looking for something nutritious to pop corn with, try avocado oil.

While burned food tastes yucky, and there is (some) evidence that a steady diet consisting mainly of burnt olive oil may be (slightly) carcinogenic, it is highly unlikely you did anything worse than ruin your munchies.

RI Swamp Yankee
  • 3,962
  • 1
  • 22
  • 25
7

There are two sides of your question, a food safety side and a nutrition side.

The food safety answers the question: does the event of eating this popcorn add to your chances of you ending up in hospital with acute symptoms of food poisoning? To that, there is a clear answer: no. Burnt oil is not acutely toxic.

The nutrition answers the question: does the event of eating this popcorn add to your chances of contracting a disease which will reduce your quality of life or kill you (e.g. cancer)? I wish I knew that. The point is, nobody knows for sure (although many people, both legitimate researchers and quacks, have hypotheses on that). We have excluded nutrition questions from our scope, because we cannot find objective answers to them. But you can relax a bit: eating this batch of popcorn was not your certain death-by-cancer sentence, just like smoking a cigarette.

Most cooks avoid burning the oil, at least for taste reasons. Use a fat with a high smoke point (such as oil sold especially for frying) for your popcorn. At popping temperatures, it will likely pyrolise, but not to the point of ending up as char. The health consequences should be roughly the same as from, say, eating pommes frittes, whatever those might be.

rumtscho
  • 141,844
  • 47
  • 316
  • 579
-3

Relax, I cook popcorn always with olive oil Firstly, make sure that you change your steel pot to well coated pan/ find one at good local store Secondly, which I am sure of; the olive oil is not version and not of trustworthy brand.

You will be okay :>

Luna Hussein
  • 1