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Do you crave a big bucket of popcorn when you go to the movies? How about at home when you fire up your DVD player to watch a late-night flick with your sweetie?
As it turns out, popcorn is one of the healthiest snacks you can eat (far healthier than the much-touted edamame) and polyphenols are the reason why.
Polyphenols are a type of chemical found in plant foods that help neutralize free radicals, those nasty little baddies that damage your cells and contribute to rapid aging.
Popcorn has one of the highest levels of polyphenols of any plant food – including most fruit!
According to Joe Vinson, Ph.D., professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton:
“Popcorn has more antioxidants in total than other snack foods that you can consume and it also has quite a bit of fiber.”
While the fiber aspect of popcorn is not particularly impressive to me as fiber is not necessarily a good thing in large quantities (people just need so much of it as they are typically so constipated from their lousy diets), the polyphenol aspect of the research is indeed compelling and should encourage folks to fire up that popcorn maker more often.
Don’t Buy Microwave or Processed Popcorn
As with any food, preparation and sourcing are critical, so don’t run out to the supermarket and load up on microwave popcorn after reading this post. It also would be wise to avoid popcorn at the movies as the synthetic factory fats and processed salt used to flavor the popcorn is less than ideal and overrides any benefit of the popcorn itself!
One other type of popcorn to skip: popcorn in snack bags specifically packaged for lunchboxes which are loaded with all manner of chemicals and synthetics for flavoring and coloring.
The healthiest popcorn is made yourself the old fashioned way on the stovetop. Popcorn makers are ok too, but in my experience, the stove is just as fast and easy with less cleanup. Popcorn is so cheap, most people will find that a nice big bag of organic kernels easily fits into even the tightest of food budgets.
The best oils to cook your popcorn in include homemade ghee or a quality brand of expeller-pressed coconut oil.
After popping, sprinkle with a good quality sea salt to complete your delicious and healthful snack. Some folks I know sprinkle with nutritional yeast powder for a nice boost of B vitamins.
Even though homemade popcorn is a fantastic and healthy snack choice, don’t overdo it. Corn that is not soaked or sprouted prior to cooking contains anti-nutrients that can inflame digestion if consumed to excess.
By the way, if someone in your family is allergic to corn, try popped sorghum. It looks and tastes the same, just smaller kernels.
How to Make Stovetop Popcorn (Video)
Below is a video I filmed for the Weston A. Price Foundation on Healthy Snacks. Click here for a transcript if you don’t prefer videos. The video includes a segment on making healthy popcorn. This visual can be helpful if you’ve never made it on the stovetop before. This is the healthiest way to enjoy it!
Organic, preferably heirloom corn kernels popped on the stovetop is a great snack to pack in your children’s lunchboxes. It is very affordable and you can feel good about making it!
Source: Study: The Snack Loaded with Antioxidants
I had no idea that popcorn had one of the highest levels of polyphenols of any plant! It is pretty cool that popcorn can reduce rapid aging so much! I have been looking for new foods to add to my diet that will help me stay healthier. I will have to start eating more popcorn!
Just made my sister’s and I some popcorn. Homemade style! To be frank, I don’t like the salt. I keep it plain, and I LOVE it! As was mentioned, not to overdo. It was very enjoyable.
Pop it in canola oil (heart healthful) pour on a moderate amount of melted “Promise” soft margarine (heart healthful) and sprinkle on a little Morton’s “Lite” salt (50% less sodium) and you have a very cheap snack with complex carbs, a little fiber, mono and polyunsaturated fat, and reduced salt. Hard to beat it short of eating an apple.
Canola oil should be called CON-ola. Not “heart healthy” at all! https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/canola-oil/
Adding fake fats to a bowl of popcorn is not a good practice!
I’ve got a life, and I clearly find popcorn, even fundamental basic airpopped unseasoned, not healthy for me,… gunks up my lymph system, as do most starch products. But that’s me. So I eat fruits, greens, meat, eggs, non-homogenized milk, quality cheese, non-filtered beer, – those all being good for me in normal modest caloric amounts,… starches not so well, – starches gunk me up, make me sick.
consider groundnuts. it is healthy snack too…
TACOS ARE THE BOMB
As always, thank you for posting this valuable information. We (my now 10 year old daughter and I) are coming off 3 years on GAPS Diet having somewhat failed us. I still can’t tolerate sourdough bread, for instance and a number of other foods. However, I have also decided that limiting other foods that it is possible that we could eat is no longer viable. I will be adding popcorn into our diet and seeing how that goes. The last time I made popcorn years ago was misguided, making sure the popcorn was NO FATl. So will be fun to make it with oil on the stove top and for me to add some ghee afterwards (my kiddo still can’t have dairy, so possibly leave it alone for her or add some lard, tallow, oilive oil, coconut oil, or palm oil for her).
It is a real shame that popcorn, even organic popcorn contains mold which creates mycotoxins that are not good for you.
Popcorn was my favourite snack until I researched and confirmed the mold issue.
Seriously, get a life. Everything if you look hard enough has either mold, or mycotoxins. A miniscule amount won’t affect you in any noticeable way shape or form. You wouldn’t be able to really eat anything if you tried hard enough to find stuff wrong with any chosen food. The pollution you breath from other others while driving is a million times worse for you than any microscopic whatever you choose to find in healthy foods/snacks people like.
seriously, i agree. you try your best. i mean organic, homemade, made with the best ingredients. unfortunately there’s harmful things EVERYWHERE. freaking chemtrails, polluted water, food, pesticides, radioactive waves, etc.