This entry was posted 13 years, 9 months ago.
August 21, 2009
Popcorn is, undoubtedly, among the most favorite snacks of young people, along with cereal, crackers, doughnuts, potato chips, fruit and chocolate bars. Some of these snacks are very healthy, some are actually not, but sometimes we really need to have a bite and eat something to help us perform well during the day. Popcorn is a carbohydrate-rich snack, which is low in calories and has quite high nutritional value. That is why popcorn consumption is significant in many countries of the world. However, a recent discovery of American scientists will definitely make more people eat popcorn and boost its sales in the nearest future.
The scientists at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania set their sights on measuring polyphenol content in a number of popular snacks, including 38 grain-based foods, 28 breakfast cereals, 9 whole-grain flours and 4 hot cereals. Polyphenols are antioxidants known and valued for their properties to remove free radicals from our body and reduce the risks of developing coronary heart disease and cancer. It turned out that popcorn has very large amounts of antioxidants, in addition to its being a rich dietary source of fiber. At that, the experts name breakfast cereal, made of rice, wheat and oat, and whole-grain flours as other important natural sources of poyphenols.
Joe Vinson, PhD, one of the leaders of the study comments on the findings as the following: “Early researchers thought the fiber was the active ingredient for these benefits in whole grains, the reason why they may reduce the risk of cancer and coronary heart disease. But recently, polyphenols emerged as potentially more important. Breakfast cereals, pasta, crackers, and salty snacks constitute over 66% of whole grain intake in the U.S. diet.” The results of this interesting research were presented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington (DC).
It is necessary to mention that popcorn consumption in many countries of the world is closely linked to the findings of such kind of researches. In 2007, lots of people decided to give up eating this food due to a high content of diacetyl, a flavor additive, as the specialists found out that it can cause Constrictive bronchiolitis or bronchiolitis obliterans, a very serious life-threatening lung disease. However, nowadays the producers of microwave popcorn minimized the levels of diacetyl usage in their product. By the way, starting your day with eating a cup of fresh popcorn is one of the best and most healthy breakfast ideas. Also, it is quite easy to make popcorn in a microwave oven using a usual snack bag to prevent damaging effects of popping.
Author Info: Hi! My name is Carla and I am a 5th year medical student at HYMS. I am interested in alternative medicine and I have done months researching the topic of herbal medicine. Besides, I like interviewing people and learning more about their experiences with one or another type of herbal treatments. I am willing to contribute to this site with my knowledge, and I would be happy to help you out to the best of my ability with any specific questions or problems related to alternative medicine.
September 1st, 2009 at 2:29 am
I really love popcorn and it is always exciting to find someone with a great blog post telling that it is beneficial to consume popcorn daily. So many people will say it is bad to eat a lot of popcorn.
Thanks for sharing this information.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:51 am
well the only reason popcorn is bad is becuase of what we put on it but if only lightly salting it is a very healthy snack.