Lifestyle
Popcorn, the Top Snack!
By
Jan 28, 2012 - 11:01:36 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - It's Superbowl time again and time for my favorite snack tip, popcorn, that is! Popcorn really is one of the best snacks, super-bowl time or otherwise. In terms of snacks, it's a nutritional winner! It's crunchy, tasty and best of all, we can eat a lot of it for a lot less calories than other snacks (I call this high volume, low calorie; it has about 80 calories per 3 cups air popped of course). Popcorn has fiber (most snacks don't unless you're munching on carrot sticks), no fat and certainly no trans-fat when we pop our own in a hot air popper. What more can we ask for while we're munching away?

What about movie popcorn or those microwave popcorns?

Okay, this is a different story! Movie popcorn is usually popped in either palm or coconut oil (both saturated fats), and though more theatres have changed the type of oil they use, the average small bag (a kiddy bag has about half) has been found to have between 400 and 600 calories with an average of 27gms to 36 gms of fat (I'm not going to horrify everyone by quoting the medium or large sizes). Depending upon the movie theatre and their size cups, which vary, this may not even include added butter as a topping that will almost double the grams of fat and of course, added calories.

Microwave popcorn isn't much better, unless we read the labels very carefully, because even most " lighter versions" may be heavy in fat, calories and sodium. A few brands I have found to be the best choices are: Healthy Choice, Newman's Own Light, and Orville Redenbacher's Natural Light. Check for brands that have 3 grams of fat or less per 3 cups of popped corn which is considered a single serving. Here's the confusing part (at least for some of us), most microwave popcorn labels give us the nutritional info based upon un-popped popcorn. The most reliable method to know how many calories we're eating (after all, ignorance is not bliss on our hips), is to calculate the calories and fat for the whole bag, and then divide accordingly per the number of servings in a bag.

So, if we're shopping for football munching (Superball Sunday is Feb. 5), let's add popcorn to our list of snacks (the healthier kind,of course). If we have our own hot air popper, let's add some " I Can't Believe it's Not Butter Spray" and enjoy. If we don't have a popper, let's put it on our shopping list for the future. And of course, let's read those labels when we buy the microwave kind. By combining this low calorie, healthy snack with those other (I know, very tasty ) snacks, we can lessen the damage a little ( think trade-offs!).

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Happy Snacking!

June M. Lay M.S.
JuneFit

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