Eating Popcorn to Lose Weight (Last Installment in This Series)

A great way to lose weight is to eat popcorn—provided that relatively little butter is used. I count calories whenever I want to return to my ideal weight, and I am thankful that I can eat fairly large quantities of popcorn and not rapidly increase my calorie count. I always popped my corn in a copper-bottomed saucepan with a lid until the day when friends gave me a popper with a crank that can be turned to spin the corn. I used that popper so much that I wore it out!

My Back to Basics Brand Popcorn Popper

I went online to purchase another one, and I found that there are heavier poppers. I bought the Back to Basics stainless steel, stove-top popper, and I am delighted with it.

Here’s how it works.

I slice a patty from a stick of salt-free butter. The thickness of the patty is about a quarter of an inch. I toss the patty in the bottom of the popper. Next, I add a half cup of popcorn. I close the lid, turn the burner on high, and begin to crank, keeping a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow. After less than two hundred spins, the popcorn pops, and, when the popping slows down, I take the popper off the burner and pour the fluffy corn into a big bowl. I immediately salt the corn. As I am concerned about consuming too much salt, I use only enough salt to give me the salty taste without dumping salt on my corn. For some people, my popcorn probably would not be salty enough, but I am accustomed to it and find the saltiness just right.

My popper does a much better job of popping the corn than I could do with a saucepan.

Once in a while, I splurge and add a tablespoon of bacon fat along with the patty of butter. Bacon fat? Why, yes! A clerk at the local supermarket suggested that I try bacon fat when popping corn, and I thank her for the idea. A tablespoon is just enough to give the popcorn an indescribable richness without tasting too much like bacon. It is the popcorn taste that I am after, after all—not bacon flavor!

The websites that dictate how many calories are in a popper full of popcorn may be in error, or it may be that they do are not following my method of using only a small amount of butter to cook my corn. I am convinced that their calorie counts are far too high. In my experience, eating popcorn is almost like eating a food that does not contribute to weight gain.