Popcorn Nutrition Facts-calories

Popcorn is an all natural, very nutritious and per cup is one of the lowest calorie foods you can have. There are many caveats about those statements, though, and popcorn can quickly escalate to a caloric nightmare if you’re not careful.

Very few people are aware that a large bucket of popcorn at some movie theatres contains more fat than five Big Macs. In these cases, it isn’t the popcorn’s fault at all. It is in the special butteroil which is generally only available to popcorn retailers. It adds that special movie popcorn taste, but it is also composed of nearly 100% fat. Some movie theatres serve giant buckets of butteroiled popcorn which contain over 2,600 calories, or the equivalent of six pounds of supermarket ice cream!

Air popped popcorn contains only 30 calories per cup. You would be hard pressed to find anything else edible that would fill a cup with that light of a caloric hit! Note that this is strictly air popped with no fats added. The problem is that in most cases an enormous amount of fat in the form of oil is added and the calories skyrocket.

Fat is not the only additive to popcorn that spikes its caloric value. Sugar coated popcorn and caramel corn recipes can increase popcorn’s calories fivefold or more. There is one recipe for a butter toffee popcorn which calls for one pound of popcorn being coated with an additional 14,000 (!!!) Calories of fats and sugars!

Popcorn by itself is very low in saturated fat, has no cholesterol and is high in dietary fiber. You can enjoy three full cups of air popped popcorn with a light spray of non-fat, butter-flavored cooking spray to add taste, and still stay under 100 calories! Now that’s great, and lean, snacking!