A savory, craveable snack like popcorn can’t be healthy, can it?
Though America’s favorite bite-sized treat can be covered in butter and salt, popcorn is actually quite nutritious. Doctors don’t recommend surviving on popcorn alone (though many of us would like to try), but when eaten in the right amounts, popcorn certainly has a place in many diets.
Plain, fresh popcorn has a lot going for it. It’s a high-fiber whole grain. According to the American Heart Association, half of all grains you eat in a day should be whole grains like popcorn. The common thinking today is that you should eat 5 to 8 ounces of grains per day.
A three-cup portion of popcorn contains many nutrients:
Depending on how it’s prepared, popcorn is also low in sugar and fat and has no cholesterol. Though not quite as healthy, flavored popcorn can also be a good treat if you’re on a low-cholesterol or low-fat diet.
Typically, a serving of plain popcorn is about two tablespoons of unpopped kernels. Popped, that’s roughly four or five cups. If you’re not sure what that looks like, get out your measuring cup. One cup is approximately the size of an apple or baseball. When you look at it, that’s quite a lot!
The serving suggestion for popular potato chips is typically one ounce or about 20 chips. If you laid that out next to a serving of popcorn, the chip pile would look a little small.
Your body is more likely to feel satisfied with a full serving of popcorn than 20 chips, even if they contain the same amount of calories. Sometimes, you can trick your body into thinking it’s full by eating a lot of one thing. If you do that, it might as well be tasty and nutritious like popcorn.
If you’re on a carb-limiting diet, finding snacks that scratch your itch for sweet and savory goodies proves difficult. Fortunately, flavored popcorn might fit the bill.
If you’re a fan of savory, a small serving of cheese-flavored popcorn can replace chips, crackers, and all of the other temptations waiting for you at the grocery store checkout line.
While caramel popcorn isn’t exactly the healthiest snack, it’s a much better option than binging on a bag of candy. Though covered in sugary goodness, it still has many benefits of a whole-grain snack.
A tub of Topsy’s flavored popcorn is more than enough to fill out your snack stash. Keep our cinnamon or caramel flavors around to satiate that sweet tooth. Trying to get more fiber in your diet than a lot of salty snacks provide? Try out cheese or buttered flavors. If you can’t decide, get a mix of it all!