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!
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| 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.
