Do you love popcorn as a snack or as a special treat at the movies? There are loads of different varieties of popcorn, both flavored and unflavored, at the supermarkets, and today on the Nutrition Couch, we thought we would take a closer look at one of my favorite food popcorn?
But is it really as healthy as what we think? Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and I'm Cez Burrow and as two of austrayas leading dieticians who specialize in evidence space nutrition, we bring you the Nutrition Couch Product Review, a weekly chat on new products and old favorites that you can find at the supermarkets. So, Susie, popcorn, you can pop your own, you can buy it pre cooked, you can get it at the movies.
You can get it coated in caramel. Are you a popcorn lover? Does it do it for you?
I'm going to the movies tonight see the new chop Gun movie. Will I be buying popcorn?
No?
I'm not a massive fan. Actually, I tell you what I do love though. I love the popcorn crackers.
Popcorn crackers?
What are they? That's popcorn? Like corn thins?
Oh?
Corn Thin's okay?
Yeah?
I like those boys quite light popcorn. I usually have some around, you know, I find in the car, they'll have it. I think what we know about more process popcorn, which we'll go through in a second, probably is a little bit of a turn off. But I recommend it to clients, and I actually call it a bit of a free food because it's quite low in like quite low in calories overall, and fiber rich and a whole grain.
So I recommend it frequently, but it's probably not my go to but if I'm honest, I also try and stay away from kind of snacky stuff like that as much as I can. But yeah, certainly I use it regularly with clients in meal plans because of it it's in its natural form. As we'll discuss in a second, it's a whole grain, really rich in fiber, and pretty good for us.
I'm a big popcorn band devid and I eat it regularly.
Is this sort of a snack option, so I mean, I much prefer it to you know, buying like a although I love my bag of kettle or I'm red rock Dalli potato chips. I find that, yeah, popcorn keeps me under control a little bit more, and I like to buy the just because I'm lazy. I buy the pre sort of portion, you know, kitty snack packs of them, because I really liked that they're pre portioned. I used
to have a popcorn maker as kids growing up. Mum had this popcorn maker, and you know, we were we didn't have a lot of money growing up, so if we went to the movies, my siblings and I, Mum would always make our own popcorn. And back in those days, you could take whatever food you wanted into the movies.
They didn't care.
So Moe used to make popcorn and then we'd sprinkle like smooky paprika or something over the top of it to give it a little bit of flavor. Because one was very health conscious, she wouldn't let us put salt or butter or anything on it. So we'd just sprinkle a little bit of some sort of seasoning on top of it and take it in with us.
Because they charged three hundred dollars for yeah, exactly, the movies, and I make all their money, which is dodging itself. It's a great snack for kids, and it's school friendly. Yes, all right, we've got a few to have a look.
At, all right, So our first one today, Susie is the Coals salted microwave popcorn, so it is about ninety five cents per little baggy, which is good. So a little bag of it is twenty grams, so I like that it's pre portioned. It's Coals brands, so it's quite affordable as well, So a little bag is twenty grams.
But I think that SUSI will do the comparison YA one hundred grams today because we're comparing three separate products, and one's twenty grams, one's twenty five grams of one's thirteen grams.
So just as a reference for our listeners.
At home, I think it's going to be easy to compare the similar serving sizes. We might go per one hundred grams, but just quickly, for this little baggy in the twenty grams, it's only eighty one calories, so it's quite a low calorie snack and it's quite a volume dense snack. So that's why I really like popcorn because I work with a lot of my female clients for fat loss, and something like popcorn is quite low calorie and it does tend to give you a bit more box.
So I really do like per one hundred grams, We've got seventeen hundred kilodels, which is roughly four hundred calories. We've got nearly nine grams of protein, twelve grams of fat, six of that being saturated fat, so probably a little bit high in terms of the fat profile that we'd like, probably a little.
Bit more saturated fat.
We've got sixty grams of carbohydrate, which sounds like a lot, but it makes sense because popcorn is a carbohydrate, less than a gram of sugar, eight point five grams of total dietary fiber, which is quite good, and one hundred milligrams of sodium, so quite low. And when we look at the ingredient list, there's only a couple of ingredients.
We've got Australian corn, which is eighty nine percent. We've got vegetable oil which they've disclosed as palm oil, antioxidant salts, and that's it made from eighty nine percent Australian ingredients. That's basically the Australian corn. There's a little bit of palm oil and a little bit of salt there. So pretty quote unquote clean ingredient lists. Although we're not a
fan of palm oil. Susy, but I think it is sort of a small amount of that in that little serving size, there's only two point five grams of fat in there, so sort of a smaller amount overall.
Can I ask you so that when you say twenty grams, so like that's a mini bag, but they look quite big. These are like ones you would pop for a family. Yeah, these are more like us said, adult size. So the third product a we're doing is more of like a little kitty size. So this is actually quite a decent snack. So this is something that I would give my adult based clients because it is actually quite a decent size. Basically, it's quite high percentage fat though, Like if you think
that just air pop popcorn. So if you buy kernels and stick them on the stove, go back into the eighties, do it with a bit of olive oil, like you know, just to pop it, you're gonna get like very little fat, whereas this is like twelve percent fat overall, like they're loading.
Up on the vegetable oil.
Definitely, I know that the serving side a small, but it's you know, not insignificant really, I think compared because I think that fresh pop popcorn is really nice on its own, so I I, you know, think you'd have to be pushed to be buying this over even though it's cheap in proportion.
But I don't know.
I just think twelve percent fat and some palm oil for the flavor. You're certainly better if you can to get the kernels and do it yourself with a bit of olive oil.
One hundred percent.
Yeah, one hundred percent yere better.
But I guess for our busy working, you know, adults, family is that sort of thing. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this.
I personally think.
It's okay, but of course you're always going to be better doing it yourself.
The sodium's low, there's you know, the sodium's low, twenty milligrams per serve or one hundred for the whole hundred. So I guess the difference if you go to pop popcorn at the movie is the salt is through the roof, and you know that just by how thirsty you.
Are, and the fat will be a lot higher as well.
And there's a bit of concern around transfats in that sort of mass produced popcorn that I'd be absolutely concerned of too, So you know, i'd give this a six or seven, I guess out of ten, would I buy it? No, I'd probably just by playing, if I'm honest. But yeah, it's interesting out there. What else is out there?
It's actually really hard to get just plain popcorn because even the ones that say no butter, they've still.
Got oil in them.
It's actually really hard to get which is like secularly plain popcorn, yeah, because I could easily give or take the butter or the oil. But I really do like my popcorn salted. But even that this variety is called lightly salted coals popcorn. Yeah, but it is still obviously quite heavily it's got you know, the palm oil and the vegetable oil in there. So it's actually really hard to find pre popped popcorn that is just one hundred
percent popcorn. I correct me if I'm wrong, but I have not seen any on the market that's just one hundred percent pre pop popcorn.
Okay, good to know. Okay.
So then the second one, Susie I thought was interesting because it's popping microwave popcorn light butter. So it's eighty five grams. You can get it cols the will Weas, and it's two dollars. So this is the one where you put it in the microwave and you make it yourself, so it's not.
Pre popped like the other the Coals variety that we had. You make it yourself.
It's almost like you're having, you know, microwave type popcorn at home where you're watching a movie with the family. So this is something that we used to have quite routinely growing up. Susie one would always buy the light the salt one, not the butter one. But I think this one's an interesting one because you think that this would be a lot more unhealthy than the previous one, which is a lightly salted one. We look at the ingredient panel, so per one hundred grams, so we're comparing
the same amount. We've got about seventeen hundred kilodules, was roughly the same eleven grams of protein, nearly eleven grams of fat, two of that being saturated, so a lot lower in saturated fat, sixty one grams of carbs, nearly twelve grams of dietary fiber, and three hundred milligrams of sodium, so about three times the amount of sodium than the Coals brand.
And when you look at.
The fat overall, the fat profile is nearly double, so sort of what you would expect in terms of the you know, being a bit more butter. And when you look at the ingredient list, it's popping corn ninety one percent, which explains why the fiber is high because this has a little bit more corn. It's got ninety one percent versus eighty nine percent. It's also got vegetable oil. They
haven't disclosed what type. Probably what a safe bet to assume it may bee palm oil or some sort of refined vegetable.
Oilundred percent if it says if it says vegetable and doesn't specify to be palm oil, especially with antioxidants in it, one hundred percent.
And then we've also got salt and natural flavor which contains milk. So there's actually no butter in this product, but they've added a natural flavor in to mimic the butter flavor. So the actual the amount of saturated vat is low, but it still does have quite a lot of palm oil. And I think we would imagine so sort of similar nutrient panel compared to the previous product in terms of calories, a little bit higher in five
of this one is. But the fat profile is fairly similar eleven grams versus twelve grams I guess, so, you know, not too vastly different.
I guess.
Yeah.
It's interesting, isn't it. When you take a close look at them.
You would think that this one would be a lot quote un quite worse because it's a butter flavor compared to the other one is just marketed as lightly salted. So I think that that's something that a lot of people would think, Oh, this one's a lot worse than the other one because one's only got salt, one's only got butter. But I think a lot of people are unaware that even the lightly salted popcorn still adds a lot of oil to it, so the fat profile is lot higher.
It's hard to know because in Australia it's not mandatory to label for trans fats. Because the research that I was doing, and admittedly it was more American, was the concern around transfats in popcorn due to processing. So it would be really interesting to know if you're a product like this which is sort of processed, if you know the trans fats differed between the pre made one and the one that you're popping yourself. And as I said,
it's really unfortunate we don't have that. But I'm actually surprised they're so they're quite high in fat, so they're not holding back to the first one actually is looking really good compared to.
This one, and then that brings us to a bad one, which is the Cobs Sweet and Salty gluten free popcorn. So interesting they've labeled that one as gluten free because the first one as well, even though they haven't really marketed as the Coals lightly salted popcorn, is gluten free as well, so the Cobs one's also gluten free. It's the sweet and salty flavor. So I've actually tried this one zoozy and it is delicious. But they do actually add sugar in there to get that sort of sweet
flavor and the balance with the saltiness as well. So looking again, per hundred grams, these are only thirteen grams serving sizes, so they're not smaller, so they're much more kitty serving sizes compared to the first Calls one, which is much more of an adult serving size. So this is a smaller serving size, so again we'll go, you know, per one hundred grams, so it's about two thousand kilodules, which is nearly five hundred calories, so a bit more
energy dens than the other two. We've got five grams of protein, so the protein is actually lower. And then in terms of the fat, we've got twenty two point four grams of fat, so the protein's about half, the fat's about double. So we'll have a lot less popcorn in this one compared to the other two. And we'll see in a second why that is. When it comes to the ingredient list, the total fats twenty two point
four grams and the saturated's two grams. The carbohydrates about sixty one grams sugars sixteen point two so added sugars in this product sousy dietary fiber is eight gram sodiums two hundred and seventy two milligrams per hundred grams. So looking at the ingredient list, we've got popcorn as the first ingredient at sixty three percent. When we looked at the popping microwave one, it had ninety one percent popcorn, so that was the highest, and the first coals pre
made packets was eighty nine percent. So this one the COB's one only sitting at sixty seven. It's not a huge amount of you know, it's only just over half of the product is actually popcorn. The rest of it's made up of sunflour, oil, raw sugar, and sea salt. So it's added sugars in this one. So it does actually taste delicious, SUSI, but we are actually adding sugar and extra salt and oil into this as well to
make out the product. So although it does taste delicious, although the serving size is smaller, so of course the calorie amount is lower. It's only sixty four calories for the little thirteen grand bag. It's definitely not This is probably my lowest sort of recommendation because it does have the added you know, the addition of the oil, the salt and the sugar in this one.
And I'm just having a look because I'm a bit surprised how high in fat all of these popcorns are because I'm just looking at Cobs, which is, you know, a very well known brand in this space, and you're right, you know, they're all coming in at twenty twenty five grams percentage fat. Even though because popcorn is so light, the individual serves which is making the first one look really good at just twelve percent fat. So this is the fart by far the lowest one the Cole saltied micropopcorn.
And I'm a bit shock because I thought there were more.
That were really sort of basically just popcorn in a bit of salt, But no, there's actually not, and I guess that's because people don't buy them because they tasting exactly that they're too plain compared to these ones. But yeah, I really thought cobs would have a plane of variety. So yeah, the first one's coming in pretty good. I'm just looking though the woolies popping corn kernels, which you can.
Get to do yourself.
Yeah, so that's four point one percent fat, So that's just coming from the whole grain. So absolutely if you can get the plain one, you're really saving yourself fat because you know, if we were talking about chipsley and and we were saying, like chips are high fat food, they're twenty five percent fat, whereas this is, you know, still twenty five percent fat. It's just the benefit is that it's a whole grain and very light, so you
don't actually get enough. But in terms of percentage fat they're certainly not low, so you know, if you can pop your own, really it's far better nutritionally. But yeah, the take home one would have to be the first one at twelve percent, which is about half what we're finding in all of these varieties, and it was very low in sodium as well. That here, at least the
Cobs use better oil. They're using a sunflow, a higher lake, I said, sunflow, which is certainly better I would compared to the others, which is a palm So that's in their favor as a company.
Yeah, And also the cost wise, like the Cobs is you know, three dollars fifteen for a small pack of five versus I think the Coals want. I think you get a pack of ten, and I think it's you know, maybe three dollars or something. So you're getting you know, larger packets in the single serve and you're getting double the amount as well, So affordability and budget wise, I
think the Coals one is definitely a better product. So overall, I probably would recommend the Calls is my number one, despite it having some palm oil in there, but it is you know, only one point two grams of saturated fat per serving, so it is quite a small amount compared to the other too as well.
No, I would two absolutely.
I'm just having a look at the Messy Monkeys one because that's one that is sort of in the kids lunch box snack section. But I think the other take home message is if you're going to the movies, you are a million times better to take your own than the stuff you're getting there, because there is some question around the type of fat and whether they even contain some trans fats, which we know are almost toxic to
the body. So even though you would say yes, they do have some fat, they're going to have far far less and far less salt than when you're getting it from the actual outlet. Plus you're going to save a lot of money because it's so expensive by there.
It was like ten dollars.
Yeah, so yeah, certainly popcorn at the movies is not a healthy choice by any means, and if you can avoid it, you're going to be much better nutritionally with any of these that you take in, both from a price perspective and nutritionally, because yeah, I'd be sort of concerned about the type of fat they're using, and you know, even questioning if it does contain some trans fats, but I'm just trying to get a number on this. Messy Monkey's brand says no palm oil, no MSG lightly salted popcorn.
So the Messy Monkey is one which is sort of marketed at more kids. So thirteen grams serving size is much smaller portion, definitely kid appropriate, twenty one point five grams of fat, and they are using some flat oil.
Yeah, it's still twenty three percent fat, so they're not like either coals is the winner.
It is actually very hard to find a pre popped popcorn on the market without either some sort of butter or butter equivalent or some sort of oil in it.
They're actually quite high and in fat when you look at it in terms of the nutrient panel overall, but in terms of the serving sizes, like thirteen grams for little kids, it's got you know, two point eight grams of fat total, so it is you know, a lower amountain I do, you know, I'd much prefer the meeting something like popcorn than I would, you know, a bag of potato chips, So I do think, you know, popcorn definitely has a place in the market, particularly because it
is a whole grain as well, so we're adding beneficial five but into our diet, particularly for our gut heals as well, and it's very allergy friendly as well. Popcorn, the pain in the butt is that it does tend to get stuck in your teeth. So I used to always hate taking it as a work snack because I could never brush my teeth afterwards. I need to floss after I have some popcorn.
And you do have to be careful with smaller kids obviously because of the small pieces around it. But you know, it's certainly if your kids like it, and it's you know, a packet snack, it's a million times better than biscuits and sweet products like that, So there's certainly a place for it. And I'd be looking for ones with better quality oil and the lower the sodium. So and if you can get away with getting that rather than buying the movie popcorn, you'll be on the right track as well.
So Nutrition Couch green Light for the home brand again, so budget friendly and probably the better option out of the three that we looked at today. Susie True True True, which is very pertinent at the moment when we're paying twelve dollars for lettuce and eight dollars for a broccoli. All right, Well, that brings us to the end of the Nutrition Couch product review for another week.
Susie.
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