An Old Time Snack-Favorite Made the Old Time Way

Long ago, in a land far away, people popped popcorn on the stove. I remember when my mom used a large pot on the stovetop to make this snack. Then entered "Jiffy Pop", the forerunner to microwave popcorn. But I wonder, in light of micro popcorn, how many people know that you can still buy Jiffy Pop?

Here's a Jiffy Pop commercial. I'm not sure when this was made. The late 1970s is my guess.

Not long after this commercial was made, microwave popcorn was introduced. This is what most people eat nowadays. It is my belief that the majority of the American population does not even know that popcorn can be made quickly, easily and cheaply on a stovetop.

The advantage of making your own popcorn from scratch is that it is much healthier and it is also much, much cheaper (microwave popcorn is anywhere from $4 to $6 per pound, while bulk organic popcorn is $1.50 - $2 per pound).

As for the ingredients in Butter Flavored Jiffy Pop, it contains the following: "popcorn, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, less than 2% of: salt, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, natural flavor, color added, freshness preserved with TBHQ, methyl silicone".

The only real ingredient in that list that is popcorn and even that is grown using pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the ground that is totally deficient in nutrients. The sad truth is most likely even worse than that since much of our corn is now genetically modified. Yes, there is also salt, but that is as processed and harmful to health as white sugar.

Micro popcorn contains pretty much the same things as Jiffy Pop. The natural flavor mentioned in the Jiffy Pop ingredient's list is also in micro popcorn and is a very toxic chemical:

"The chemical -- diacetyl -- adds buttery taste. Government worker safety investigators have linked exposure to the synthetic butter to the sometimes fatal destruction of the lungs of hundreds of workers in food production and flavoring factories...It remains in widespread use in thousands of...consumer products, including the microwave popcorn brands Orville Redenbacher and Act II."

The following video demonstrates how to make popcorn on the stovetop. But, of course, I would like to offer a few suggestions:

#1. Use organic, virgin coconut oil - 2 tablespoons - instead of what the instructor of this video suggests. 

#2. Use organic popcorn - 1/2 cup - since so much of what is grown now is genetically modified, which can have deleterious effects upon human health. I buy my popcorn at Whole Foods out of the bulk bins.

#3. Use real sea salt -to taste - (it isn't white - it's gray) or Redmond's Real Salt (I really like this salt because it dispenses from a shaker just like processed white salt).

#4. When the corn has finished popping, empty it into a large heavy paper grocery bag (the kind with the handles works really good.)

#5. Melt some real butter - 1/2 cube - and pour over the popped corn while shaking the bag to distribute the butter.

Yum, yum! I'm getting hungry for popcorn just thinking about it.