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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
My great aunt always made popcorn on the stove in bacon grease– it’s amazing. She lived to be 91 and clear headed.
So, how much bacon grease should I give my newborn – so that she may live to 91? Is that too young? Should I wait till she is 3 or 4 before I give her the bacon grease? Do you think maybe when she is a preteen, I can set her on the long and healthy path to a clearheaded 91 by starting her on a regimen of bacon grease?
@chicknlil: Sounds delicious! That’s what I make my popcorn in — lard from pasture raised pigs (“happy pigs”) that I rendered myself. It is so nice to discover these fats from nature (existing for thousands of years) are the ones that are good for us, where as the man-made processed fats that have popped up in the last 100 years are actually the ones that cause heart disease! (Crisco was invented in 1911, the first heart attack recorded in our country was 1912) 😉
@thecuriousone: I wouldn’t feed your newborn bacon grease. Breastmilk is best, however, if you are not able to breastfeed, Sarah has a wonderful video on how to make a superior homemade baby formula.
Tabatha – it’s too late; i already fed her some bacon grease this morning ( a little messy on the clean up- a bib thing). I figure if it will help her to live to 91 and of sound mind, basically, if it’s a good thing, why wait. Why not get started on good things early. We start them on sugar early, that’s not a good thing.
I LOVE popcorn. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! If the husband knows I’ve had a bad day, he makes me popcorn. If he’s in the dog house, he makes me popcorn. I’ve been known to eat it (alone) for lunch. Now I have some ammo to come back with when I’m told “it’s not healthy enough to eat alone!”
I don’t eat corn. I heard it is universally contaminated with fungus from a very reliable source.
Could you site that source please?
Does air popped pop corn have the same benefits as the stove top with oil pop corn? Or does the high temp of the air popping process damage the corn?
My husband and I own a movie theatre. We serve popcorn that is gmo free and organic. it is popped in coconut oil and will add real butter on top for those who want it.
That’s AWESOME!!! I would actually buy your popcorn instead of sneaking my own in.
hey Oliver, this is my answer to all of your responses, TLDR.
The problem is you have read each and every one of them. I don’t see the reason to lie to the thread. If you disagree that is fine and healthy, but to read each and every post and then say you didn’t read them is untrue.
And u say they’re too long. Too long for what? Where do u have to go -You’re sitting here at night on a food forum.
See So cal, that is as mean as I will get – but obviously in direct response to his/her post
I suppose i could have taken the high road – i am not perfect, I am working on it – besides sometimes it’s fun to mix it up with folks who have nothing real to offer a thread.
I’ll be nicer in the mornin – i too am a work in progress
It’s really quite simple, and anyone with a scientific background could tell you if your posts weren’t so long and boring. The human body does not and CANNOT absorb whole proteins, it absorbs amino acids, which are individual components of proteins. The entire stomach is an organ designed to break down proteins. Cooking evolved so it made this process easier for the human body. A “pre-digestion” if you will outside of the body. If cooking had no benefit, we wouldn’t be cooking. We would just be eating eggs raw instead of making them into an omelette. In fact, some notable scientists have hypothesized that cooking is one of the main evolutionary reasons humans have become so dominant, as it allows us to offload energy-demanding catabolic work externally, which no other species on the planet is capable of doing.
You obviously have an active mind, but not an open one. Stop being so cocky and boring and listen to people when they say that you are wrong.
Wow! Finally someone that posted a response to Oliver that presented a different opinion that wasn’t simply a reproachful putdown of his knowledge. Up until this post every chauvinistic response has simply been inane drivel which to a newcomer (me) made it rather clear that: 1) there was not a great deal of incisive academic based participants present in this thread and 2) Oliver was probably right on all counts.
While Oliver is clearly enthusiastic and perhaps a bit dogmatic in his opinions, as a person who stumbled across this forum as a completely unbiased seeker of knowledge, I none the less didn’t find any of Oliver’s comments particularly disparaging to a significant degree- to the opposite they were informative.
In contrast the responses to his posts were by and large emotionally charged hostile invectives that sought to disparage him rather then respond to the highly interesting and apparently unconventional points he was making. With the sole exception of the response above, so unfortunately entitled “oliver_you_are_wrong, I found that no one could controvert his assertions that seem to be clearly supported by scientific substantiation.
I look forward with apt anticipation for Oliver’s response to this first legitimate challenge to his assertions.
Incidentally, I found this post after getting sick eating “movie popcorn” (gasp) with my daughter. We both love the Daddy Daughter dates to the movies and I was searching for evidence that “Popcorn was not good for kids” and came across this forum which at first I thought might save popcorn, and who knows maybe even Christmas for her. Alas, the debate continues along with my current indigestion. Oliver and Oliver_You_Are_Wrong have at it.
I love popcorn also. However I no longer partake. It is high in carbohydrates which creates a very high insulin response in the body which in turn throws off blood sugar levels and adds to weight gain. There are other snacks that are healthier.
Megan I will give you another nudge to not use your microwave. I read that not only does it destroy the nutrients in the food you cook in it but also anything in a 10 foot radius. In my kitchen my spices are in the cupboard right next to the microwave so that would mean it would destroy all the good properties my costly organic spices provide. In my house it’s a, “kick you to the curb'” offense for using the microwave for anything other than the clock or timer on it.
I’m just curious why you even have microwave. Is it built-in and not convenient to remove it? Can’t you just get a timer and digital clock instead? I’m very new to “Traditional” cooking (haven’t even read the book yet, actually). Although I’ve heard of the dangers of microwaves for many years, I still have one. It hasn’t been until the last few weeks that I started exclusively using my stove/oven for heating/cooking. I was just curious whether you too are in “transition” or if you still use it for certain things, or if you just haven’t felt the need to physically get rid of it yet.
What do you think about cooking popcorn in lard (rendered at home from pastured pork)? It tastes so delicious!