Butter Popcorn Rice Cakes vs Farms Real Theater Popcorn: which is safer?
Quaker Butter Popcorn Rice Cakes is the clear pick. Wabash Valley Farms Real Theater Popcorn carries a failing PFAS grade, and we never recommend buying a failing product.
Our pick
Quaker
Butter Popcorn Rice Cakes
PFAS grade
Overall grade
Verdict
Hazard flags
Material
Confidence
PossibleMold or bacterial growth in packaging
Wabash Valley
Farms Real Theater Popcorn
PFAS grade
Overall grade
Verdict
Hazard flags
Material
Confidence
LikelyPFAS in grease-resistant coating
PossibleMicroplastics and coating degradation
PossibleMineral oil or paraffin in coating
Where these two actually differ
- We flag Mold or bacterial growth in packaging on the Quaker and not on the Wabash Valley.
- We flag PFAS in grease-resistant coating, Microplastics and coating degradation and Mineral oil or paraffin in coating on the Wabash Valley and not on the Quaker.
- The Quaker is puffed rice cakes in paperboard packaging where the Wabash Valley is paper popcorn bag with grease-resistant coating, which is most of the difference in these two grades.
- The gap is 45 points, wide enough that this is not a close call, and the Quaker is the one to buy.
- We are less certain about the Wabash Valley grade, at 45% confidence against 72%, because it discloses less.
Both products run through the same public rubric: materials, coatings, brand disclosure, lab findings, and recalls, plus a beyond-PFAS hazard analysis. Grades are model-based estimates, not lab tests. How grades work →
More microwave popcorn: see the full ranking