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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
Is there a reason you recommend using expeller-pressed rather than unrefined coconut oil? While I use expeller-pressed for most cooking, I love the taste of the unrefined on popcorn.
I use extra virgin coconut oil. I was wondering if expeller pressed was different.
Expeller-pressed is more neutral tasting. I prefer it for most cooking, since the unrefined coconut oil imparts a distinctive flavor. I use the regular, extra virgin coconut oil for popping corn, however. I was wondering whether Sarah recommended the expeller-pressed for a reason other than the neutral flavor. The expeller-pressed, while only minimally refined, is still a healthy oil, but I think most would agree that the unrefined is at least somewhat healthier.
I love my popcorn cooked in bacon fat, drizzled with grassed butter, sea salt.
I’m SO going to try cooking it in bacon fat!!!
yeah, i do it like that sometimes too. delicious!
I have used both and honestly I can’t notice much flavor difference. Neither can my boys and they don’t particularly care for coconut…
Now I can stop feeling guilty about making popcorn so often! Our little family loooves popcorn, especially my 2 year-old. She asks for it every day, and we make it on the stovetop in coconut oil. YUMMY!
Air popped popcorn is so quick, easy, healthy and clean! I’m never going back to stove popped corn again. We love popcorn here (in Australia).
This is the best news of my life!
I can’t do corn. There’s a reason they use it to fatten up animals, and apparently it does the same thing to me.
My son’s favorite snack 🙂 He begs for it 5 days out of 7
I get organic popcorn in the bulk bins at Whole Foods… but I believe Arrowhead Mills also makes some (available at most health food stores). However, most popcorn is NOT genetically modified. The GMO corn that we’re all thinking of is a very different type of corn and is used to make high fructose corn syrup, etc. It is not edible like corn should be – it could never be used for popcorn.
Hi Sarah,
I made a batch of soaked//dried pecans and they were delicious! Next, I did some cashews and they looked so gross I haven’t touched them.
Good news about popcorn. :o) I love popcorn and have given up microwaved and adopted making it the healthy way.
Thanks for the video.
Jan, don’t be discouraged by the cashews…they tend to get slimy if soaked for a long time, and I’ve also experienced them turning slightly purple. I just rinse them well and dry–they turn out fine:)
I only soak cashews for 2 hours if i have small pieces, 3 if they are larger. I get them from Azure standard, they have whole, large pieces and small. Small is cheapest and if you are going to chop the anyway, it a smart buy. we still soak them but for a very short time.
Trader Joe’s has organic popping kernels
I just love posts like this that validate something I love. I could eat popcorn all day. So glad it’s not guilt-inducing! Hip hip hooray.