The Good and the Bad of Popcorn

Popcorn is a favourite snack for most of us at the movie halls and for our kids as well. But there are a couple of things that we need to understand about Popcorn. There’s the good of popcorn and there’s the evil dangers of popcorn as well. The beauty of popcorn is that it contains a lot of fibre because it comes with the endosperm and it comes with the brand. It contains so much a fire that can it can actually help with constipation digestion and with even retention of certain nutrients in the human body. It’s rich in manganese, magnesium, potassium, copper, B 3 and B 6; which play a massive role when it comes to immunity as well as weight loss. Popcorn is also rich in protein.

When you have popcorn the right way it helps in regulating your blood sugar levels making it a fantastic snack for people with diabetes and for people who are trying to lose weight. When it comes to reducing cholesterol; the bad cholesterol in your body and triglycerides as well because of the endosperm and the brand and the amount of fibre that popcorn has it has this cleansing activity in the body where it passes through your artery and cleans out the LDL which is your bad cholesterol. It helps digestion and weight loss because when you have popcorn the right way it fills you up and you eat less food, fibre keeps you full for a longer period of time.

But also have to be careful that fibre in many cases can be bad for people who are going through IBS and certain digestive disorders as well. So fibre in excess may not be good for most people, but most people today lack fibre in their diet which is why constipation is on the rise and constipation is extremely dangerous is when it comes to your health because the longer you keep toxic waste in your system the more prone you are to creating DNA damage and starting mutations in your cells because of the toxic waste which is supposed to be expelled from you from the human body.

Popcorn is also very rich in antioxidants. It contains polyphenols which basically manage free radicals in your body. What are free radicals? The human body naturally produces free radicals to enable your metabolic processes function better but the problem is when we produce too many free radicals that can come in from the pollutants in the air we breath, from the junk food, the excess sugar, plastic, the wrong oils; when you constantly use refined oils, hydrogenated oils, bad quality oils or oils which are constantly reheated produce more free radicals than your body requires and then that becomes a problem because they damage the DNA of your cells, they damage cellular energy of your cells. Free radicals lead to accelerated aging, digestive issues and as we know most cancers are caused because of DNA damage. Free radicals wreak havoc with your immunity.

Popcorn contains polyphenols almost ninety percent more than fruits and vegetables and in a concentrated form. Now fruits and vegetables also contain super antioxidants and polyphenols but fruits and vegetables consist of almost eighty to ninety percent of water. So it’s a diluted form. So the more active polyphenols are found in popcorn and that helps you with anti-aging. It has shown promising results in the treatment of dementia, Alzheimer’s anything to do with your brain and most cancers especially breast cancer and prostate cancer because anything that’s a super antioxidant in the human body can neutralize free radicals allowing for your cells and your immunity to get much better.

The kernels, the popcorn that you actually get; a lot of it is genetically modified but now a lot of it is also not genetically modified. What we need to be careful for is about the evils of microwave popcorn that is extremely detrimental to your health and your child’s health. In fact it’s the worst thing that you would want to give your child after aerated drinks and commercially prepared French fries because the microwave bags which you just put into the microwave and then they pop up that bag contains something called pfoa which is a chemical which has shown direct correlation with hyperactivity in children, low birth rate and thyroid dysfunction in children, it also has a direct impact on your insulin levels and a HDH basically attention deficient and hyperactive disorders in children as well as in adults. So we need to be careful of this chemical and this chemical is found in abundance in all microwaved popcorn bags.

There are a few companies which are now doing organic paper bags and that doesn’t have the chemical pfoa but then we got to be careful of the pseudo butter. The microwave popcorn get the flavour from pseudo butter which is not real butter and which contains a chemical called diacetyl which has a direct correlation with breathing problems and lung problems in children and in adults. Also issue with microwave popcorn is the Trans fats, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fat. These are fats that the human body doesn’t know how to handle and from the time you start giving your child anything that contains Trans fats be it your McDonald french fries or commercially prepared French fries to most junk food, packets of chips and all the processed foods; they contain Tran’s fats and hydrogenated fats. Your body doesn’t know how to handle it so it stores it and it starts storing this in your artery from the time you are a child. So today when adults have cholesterol problems, this cholesterol has built over the years probably from the time that you were a child. So now you got to decide whether you want to put that in your child’s body or for that matter your body because no amount of workouts will help your body breakdown Trans fats or hydrogenated fat.

Now if we eat too much of saturated fats; we put on a little bit of weight because we have eaten too much of fat, our body can break down that fat and use it as energy with the right amount of exercise and the right amount of lifestyle and dietary changes. But when it comes to Trans fats and hydrogenated fats, your body starts storing it in your arteries and that builds up as plaque over the years and that’s when we have blockages, cholesterol problems or inflammation which is even more dangerous than cholesterol issues.

So these are the reasons that we should be careful of and not use microwave popcorn.

Instead you can buy the popcorn kernel. If you use half a cup of popcorn, put it in the vessel add the oil and you cover it and you let it pop for a while. When it’s popped completely you can sprinkle a little bit of turmeric, a little bit of black pepper, a little bit of rock salt. You can make your popcorn. It’s one of the best snacks you can have. It’s got protein, fibre, right carbohydrates and all those minerals and vitamins that I just spoke about. It’s a fantastic snack for your child but don’t overdo it. Never over eat anything including fruits and vegetables or popcorn. Never eat more than our body requires because even if you overeat the good, if your body doesn’t need it at that point it store it as energy for later part in the day which is usually fat. So you should be very careful of overeating anything.

These is a great snack especially for people who have diabetes and you can popcorn at home and keep building up different methods to add taste to it. It’s a fantastic night-time snack and a lot of people have this issue where they get hungry at night and they don’t know what to eat. So you usually open the fridge and then that’s when all the junk comes out and your entire day of effort gone into your exercise and eating right can get completely negated by choosing the wrong night-time snack. Popcorn will take you less than five to six minutes and that could be the best snack that you have.

Let’s talk about the movie popcorn. That’s not popped in microwave bags but the problem is they use commercial fats to make that popcorn which is full of hydrogenated fat and trans fat again. The best choice of popcorn at a movie centre is the salted popcorn. Caramel comes with loads of sugar.

So that’s the good and a bad of popcorn. it’s a great snack for you and for your kids and I recommend to every parent that when you have birthday parties for your child start replacing all the commercially prepared junk food and packets of chips and wafers with homemade Popcorn. It’s a great snack and I’m sure your children are going to love it.

So we should experiment with these ways of eating the right way because it’s extremely important when it comes to building the immunity of your child and the amount of hyperactive children that we see today and we can link it down to just two dietary mistakes that parents make with their children; aerated drinks because that creates hyperactivity in children and processed foods because of the amount of salt and hidden msg and the microwave popcorn.