With the release of the Twilight sequel, New Moon and anticipation of James Cameron’s Avatar, the holiday movie season is in full swing.
Yet, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest the true horror story may not be showing on the big screen but taking place in your popcorn bucket.
The organization’s lab test of popcorn obtained at the nation’s three largest movie chains found that most movie theater popcorn has enough saturated fat to make a cardiologist cringe.
In fact, a Regal theater medium popcorn contains 60 grams of saturated fat - three whole days worth of artery clogging fat. This is even before you add more butter to the popcorn from the butter dispensers
The culprit – coconut oil. Two of the nation’s top three theater chains, Regal and AMC cook their popcorn in highly saturated coconut oil. Coconut oil is 90% saturated. Lard, in comparison, is 40% saturated.
Cinemark by contrast cooks its popcorn in non-hydrogenated canola oil. This explains why a large tub of popcorn at AMC contains 57 grams of saturated fat while the same size tub at Cinemark contains only 4 grams of saturated fat.
Yet, saturated fat is just the first act of this movie theater horror story. A drink and a popcorn at a movie theater contains more calories than most meals. A medium popcorn and soda at Regal cinemas packs on nearly 1600 calories – more than half of most people’s daily calorie needs.
So how do you protect your heart and your waistline, not to mention your pocket book?
Call me cheap or call me frugal, I just skip the popcorn and soda all together – saving nearly $11.50 per trip to the movie theater.
My secret – I eat a bag of popcorn at home just prior to going to the theater. In just 4 minutes my hot air popper cooks nutritious popcorn without the saturated fat. And its just 12 cents a serving. By time I’ve hit the movies my popcorn craving has been tamed.
So do you feast on movie popcorn, sneak in your own snacks, or do you have another alternative? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
The summer after my senior year of college, I worked at a movie theater. My job was to make the popcorn. What more could an 18 year old want – free movies, popcorn and soda. I lived on popcorn and soda that summer and now the thought of that makes me queasy. I don’t even like movie theater popcorn – too greasy and salty, but my husband can’t go to a movie without indulging. Fortunately we don’t go to movies very often.
Like Kristia I also worked at a movie theater in college where I had the lovely job of cleaning the popcorn machine at the end of the day. The “butter” looks like yellow Crisco and after one cleaning I was cured of my craving for popcorn. To this day (30 years later) I still can’t eat popcorn at the movie theater.
Thanks for the info.
Betty
@Krista – Thanks for stopping by. I’ve always thought working at a movie theater would be one of the coolest jobs, especially the idea of free movies.
@Betty – “The “butter” looks like yellow Crisco and after one cleaning I was cured of my craving for popcorn.” Yes that mental picture of butter looking like Crisco is disgusting. I think I’ll stick to my hot air popped popcorn =)
My hubby can’t do a movie w/out his popcorn. Fortunately we don’t go all that often. My movie snack of choice is Milk Duds and I bring my own…ssshh, don’t tell.
At home I use coconut oil to make our popcorn but no butter required. Just a dash of sea salt and it is delish. I use about 2 tsp of oil per 1/3 c. of corn.
I will admit that I make my own popcorn at home and then sneak it in. Shhhhh, don’t say anything. I also bring my own water since it just galls me to pay $4 for a bottle of water. I feel guilt doing this….
But not that much guilt.
@Nancy
@Debbie
Shhhh, I sneak my own candy and drink in as well. Maybe if they didn’t charge so much people might purchase more items at the concession stands =)