Popcorn Fun Facts

Popcorn Fun Fact 1
Most of the world's popcorn is grown in the Midwestern part of the United States

Popcorn Fun Fact 2
An American Indian folklore, some tribes were said to believe that quiet, contented spirits lived inside of each popcorn kernel. When their houses were heated, the spirits would become angrier and angrier, shaking the kernels, and when the heat became unbearable, they would burst out of their homes and into the air in a disgruntled puff of steam.

Popcorn Fun Fact 3
It was not until 1890 that popcorn became important enough to be raised as a crop for market. Before that time, individual families raised their own popcorn or bought it from their neighbors

Popcorn Fun Fact 4
The oldest ears of popcorn ever found were discovered in the Bat Cave (a site known to have been occupied by cave dwellers practicing primitive agriculture three thousand years ago)

Popcorn Fun Fact 5
A Zapotec funeral urn found in Mexico and dating about 300 A.D. depicts a Maize god with symbols representing primitive popcorn in his headdress

Popcorn Fun Fact 6
Ancient popcorn poppers (shallow vessels with a hole on the top and a single handle) have been found on the north coast of Peru and date back to the pre-Inca culture of about 300 A.D.

Popcorn Fun Fact 7
Popcorn was an important food for the Aztec Indians, who also used popcorn as decoration for ceremonial headdresses, necklaces, and ornaments on statues of their gods.

Popcorn Fun Fact 8
17th Century -Early French explorers in the Great Lakes region reported that the Iroquois Indians popped popcorn in a pottery vessel with heated sand and used it to make popcorn soup, among other things

Popcorn Fun Fact 9
Some historians suggest, but this theory has never been proved, that when the early English colonists held their first Thanksgiving celebration on October 15, 1621, an Indian named Quadequina brought an offering for the feast - a great deerskin bag of popped corn. The Pilgrims enjoyed this treat, which was to become a unique part of the American way of life. The early colonists called it popped corn, parching corn, and rice corn.

Popcorn Fun Fact 10
Colonial housewives served popcorn with sugar and cream for breakfast (the first "puffed" breakfast cereal).

Popcorn Fun Fact 11
The first popcorn machine was invented by Charles Cretors of Chicago, Illinois in 1885.

Popcorn Fun Fact 12
In 1914, Cloid H. Smith founded the American Pop Corn Company in the heart of corn country (Sioux City, Iowa) and launched America's first brand name popcorn called Jolly Time.

Popcorn Fun Fact 13
During World War II (1941-1945), sugar was sent overseas for American troops. This meant thaat there wasn't much sugar left in the United States to make candy. Due to this unusual situation, Americans ate three times as much popcorn as usual.

Popcorn Fun Fact 14
When television became popular in the 1950s, popcorn sales again made a sudden rise (this time by an astonishing 500 per cent!) As families started buying television sets, they were changing their life-styles and staying home more and eating popcorn as they watched television.

Popcorn Fun Fact 15
Americans consume some 17 billion quarts of this whole grain, good-for-you treat. That’s 54 quarts per man, woman, and child.

Popcorn Fun Fact 16
Compared to most snack foods, popcorn is low in calories. Air-popped popcorn has only 31 calories per cup. Oil-popped is only 55 per cup.

Popcorn Fun Fact 17
Popcorn is a type of maize (or corn), a member of the grass family, and is scientifically known as Zea mays everta.

Popcorn Fun Fact 18
Of the 6 types of maize/corn—pod, sweet, flour, dent, flint, and popcorn—only popcorn pops.

Popcorn Fun Fact 19
Popcorn is a whole grain. It is made up of three components: the germ, endosperm, and pericarp (also know as the hull).

Popcorn Fun Fact 20
Popcorn needs between 13.5-14% moisture to pop.

Popcorn Fun Fact 21
Popcorn differs from other types of maize/corn in that is has a thicker pericarp/hull. The hull allows pressure from the heated water to build and eventually bursts open. The inside starch becomes gelatinous while being heated; when the hull bursts, the gelatinized starch spills out and cools, giving it its familiar popcorn shape.

Popcorn Fun Fact 22
Most U.S. popcorn is grown in the Midwest, primarily in Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri.

Popcorn Fun Fact 23
Many people believe the acres of corn they see in the Midwest during growing season could be picked and eaten for dinner, or dried and popped. In fact, those acres are typically field corn, which is used largely for livestock feed, and differs from both sweet corn and popcorn.

Popcorn Fun Fact 24
The peak period for popcorn sales for home consumption is in the fall.

Popcorn Fun Fact 25
Most popcorn comes in two basic shapes when it's popped: snowflake and mushroom. Snowflake is used in movie theaters and ballparks because it looks and pops bigger. Mushroom is used for candy confections because it doesn't crumble.

Popcorn Fun Fact 26
Gourmet popcorn is North America's favorite snack treat

Popcorn Fun Fact 27
Unpopped popcorn accounts for approximately 90 percent of sales for home consumption.

Popcorn Fun Fact 28
Don't freeze popcorn or keep it in the fridge. This dries out your kernels and without moisture there won't be any poppin'.

Popcorn Fun Fact 29
Those kernels you find at the bottom of the bowl that failed to pop are called old maids. They were too dry to have any pop left in them.

Popcorn Fun Fact 30
Popping popcorn is one of the number one uses for microwave ovens. Most microwave ovens have a “popcorn” control button.

Popcorn Fun Fact 31
“Popability” is popcorn lingo that refers to the percentage of kernels that pop.

Popcorn Fun Fact 32
There is no such thing as “hull-less” popcorn. All popcorn needs a hull in order to pop. Some varieties of popcorn have been bred so the hull shatters upon popping, making it appear to be hull-less.

Popcorn Fun Fact 33
How high popcorn kernels can pop? Up to 3 feet in the air.

Popcorn Fun Fact 34
The world's largest popcorn ball, as measured by the Guinness Book of World Records: 12 feet in diameter, containing 2,000 pounds of corn, 40,000 pounds of sugar, 280 gallons of corn syrup and 400 gallons of water.

Popcorn Fun Fact 35
If you made a trail of popcorn from New York City to Los Angeles, you would need more than 352,028,160 popped kernels!

Popcorn Fun Fact 36
Americans consume 16.5 billion quarts of popped popcorn annually. About 30 percent of that is eaten outside the home - in theaters, ballparks, schools, etc.

Popcorn Fun Fact 37
One cup of popcorn provides 1.3 grams of dietary fiber.

Popcorn Fun Fact 38
Popcorn has more protein, phosphorus and iron than potato chips, an ice crean cone, pretzels or soda crackers.

Popcorn Fun Fact 39
Popcorn pops because heat builds steam pressure inside the seed.

Popcorn Fun Fact 40
Arhaeologists have found ears of popcorn in New Mexico nearly 5,600 years old.

Popcorn Fun Fact 41
Kernels vary in colour; including red, black, gold, off-white, and many others. Some are hulless and there are a variety of sizes, but only two basic shapes, mushroom and round.

Popcorn Fun Fact 42
Taste varies by type. The yellow popcorn pops largest and is the most common.

Popcorn Fun Fact 43
Popcorn is a wholesome food which aids digestion by providing necessary roughage.

Popcorn Fun Fact 44
Health and medical groups regard popcorn as an excellent mealtime complement: it's sugar-free, fat-free, and low in calories.

Popcorn Fun Fact 45
Popcorn is also a very economical grain so it's an inexpensive way to add fiber to your diet. It is a good source of carbohydrate energy and fiber.

Popcorn Fun Fact 46
Low in both calories and fat, popcorn is literally "light" - one gallon of unbuttered popcorn weighs only 3 1/2 ounces - carrying a mere 390 calories.

Popcorn Fun Fact 47
Popped popcorn is mostly air and has no artificial colors, preservatives or sugars to weigh it down. But because it's high in carbohydrates, protein and other nutrients, popcorn is one of the healthiest snacks around.

Popcorn Fun Fact 48
Popcorn has: more protein than any other cereal grain, more iron than eggs, peanuts, spinach or roast beef, and more phosphorous and fiber than potato chips, ice cream cones or pretzels.

Popcorn Fun Fact 49
American organizations such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the federal government's cancer prevention agency, have recommended popcorn as a moderately high source of fiber that may help reduce the risk of some forms of cancer.

Popcorn Fun Fact 50
The American Dental Association (ADA) includes popcorn on its list of sugar-free snacks; and the American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association permit popcorn as a bread exchange on weight-control diets. (source: The Popcorn Institute, Chicago IL)


Define Popcorn...
Pop·corn (pŏp'kôrn')
n.
1. A variety of corn, Zea mays everta, having hard kernels that burst to form white, irregularly shaped puffs when heated.
2. The edible popped kernels of this variety of corn.
1. A small piece, as of polystyrene, used in quantity to protect items during packaging and shipment.