From www.Popcorn.org
- Americans consume some 17 billion quarts of this whole grain, good-for-you treat. That’s 54 quarts per man, woman, and child.
- Compared to most snack foods, popcorn is low in calories. Air-popped popcorn has only 31 calories per cup. Oil-popped is only 55 per cup.
- Of the 6 types of maize/corn—pod, sweet, flour, dent, flint, and popcorn—only popcorn pops.
- Popcorn is a whole grain. It is made up of three components: the germ, endosperm, and pericarp (also know as the hull).
- Popcorn needs between 13.5-14% moisture to pop.
- Popcorn differs from other types of maize/corn in that is has a thicker pericarp/hull. The hull allows pressure from the heated water to build and eventually bursts open. The inside starch becomes gelatinous while being heated; when the hull bursts, the gelatinized starch spills out and cools, giving it its familiar popcorn shape.
- Many people believe the acres of corn they see in the Midwest during growing season could be picked and eaten for dinner, or dried and popped. In fact, those acres are typically field corn, which is used largely for livestock feed, and differs from both sweet corn and popcorn.
- The peak period for popcorn sales for home consumption is in the fall.
- Most popcorn comes in two basic shapes when it's popped: snowflake and mushroom. Snowflake is used in movie theaters and ballparks because it looks and pops bigger. Mushroom is used for candy confections because it doesn't crumble.
- Popping popcorn is one of the number one uses for microwave ovens. Most microwave ovens have a “popcorn” control button.
- “Popability” is popcorn lingo that refers to the percentage of kernels that pop.
- There is no such thing as “hull-less” popcorn. All popcorn needs a hull in order to pop. Some varieties of popcorn have been bred so the hull shatters upon popping, making it appear to be hull-less.
- How high popcorn kernels can pop? Up to 3 feet in the air.
- The world's largest popcorn ball, as measured by the Guinness Book of World Records: 12 feet in diameter, containing 2,000 pounds of corn, 40,000 pounds of sugar, 280 gallons of corn syrup and 400 gallons of water.
- If you made a trail of popcorn from New York City to Los Angeles, you would need more than 352,028,160 popped kernels!
12 comments:
Talk about food facts! That's awesome! I so enjoy your posts!
I bought an awesome microwaveable popcorn popper... it's like air popped but used in the microwave, so you don't need oil or anything. Sprinkle with a little Nutritional Yeast or Tamari and YUM!
I
LOVE
POPCORN!
Thanks for the fun facts, Teddy.
Hope you have a sweet 'n' poppin' fresh week.
Hi! It's a good blog.
I will come bace to see you again.
That's a lot of popcorn! :)
ALso left a message on your previous post, too!
We just had popcorn last night, Joe makes THE best popcorn, better than the movie kind (and better for us, obviously!!) Now I know the corn-facts too....
Huggs, G
PS Ive been swamped in more ways than one, but 'code' will be used soon, thanks again.
Fun! I recently got a stovetop popper and have gotten back into popcorn again! Nutritional yeast is a great topping.
popcorn is actually pretty good for you, aside from carbs. They are really low calorie (basically nothing if you dont add salt/butter) and they are high in fiber. So, feel better about it.
3 feet? that's hilarious!popcorn is good for you...it's corn syrup that's BAAAAAAD bad bad for you.
How neat! I love popcorn so much. Before we moved to London for awhile, we were wrongly informed that they don't have popcorn in London - you have to bring your own from the United States.
So, we packed a bunch to bring with us...only to find out that they sell popcorn in London. Boy did we feel dumb, but at least we had our popcorn!
yesterday:
that's a lotta tofu! everything looked really tasty, and i love their "hip to be square" ad. cute, cute, cute.
today:
I LOVE POPCORN MORE THAN ANY OTHER SNACK FOOD! I make mine old school, in a pan on the stove with a wee bit o' canola oil. My preferred topping of choice? A little salt.
Call me a popcorn purist.
Is there going to be a POP quiz?
We make our own microwave popcorn with regular popcorn in a paper lunch bag.. We just spray it with a bit of olive oil and add spices. It's really good and healthy. I like to use a spray pump an fill it with olive oil, braggs and nutritional yeast and spray it on the popcorn. YUM!
oh.. and about the stevia.. Dori has a link on her blog about where to buy the KAL.. I've bought from them and have been very happy. It's around 20 bucks for a bottle, but it lasts forever... and around 3/4 tsp = 1 cup of sugar.. I went into more of an indepth answer on my blog about it.. (in the comment section)
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