Unpopped Kernels Costing U.S. Billions

April 28, 2004 | Issue 40•17

SIOUX CITY, IA—The singed, partially opened, and otherwise unpopped kernels at the bottom of U.S. snack bowls are costing Americans an average of $18 billion every year, FDA sources reported Tuesday. "The typical pound of popping corn results in an average of 35 'dead' kernels," FDA deputy commissioner Lester M. Crawford said before Congress. "Considering the costs of growing, processing, and packaging these kernels, and the heat energy expended in fruitless endeavors to pop them, it's an epic level of waste." Crawford asked Congress to double funding for the FDA's $200 million old-maid-elimination research project.