1. SIMPLICITY: In its purest form, popcorn contains only four ingredients: oil, corn, butter and salt. It cooks fast — under 10 minutes on the stove, under 2 in the microwave — and requires few tools. Plus, it’s served in a bowl or bag so you don’t even need to use silverware.
2: VISUALLY STUNNING: Exploding kernels are a wondrous sight.
How Popcorn Pops pic.twitter.com/fUW0lI6GD4
— World and Science (@WorldAndScience) January 23, 2016
3. POP! PING PING! POP: Popping corn is edible music.
4. YUM: The smell, my goodness, is divine. And the taste has an addictive quality. You simply can’t eat just one.
5: PORTABILITY: Eat it at home, in a hotel, in the car, at your desk or just out in the world.
6. CUSTOMIZABLE: You can dress it up with everything from bacon to spices to cheese to chocolate, but honestly, homemade popcorn is fine on its own.
7. FESTIVE: You can string it on thread and use it as a Christmas decoration. Alternative, you can pour some popcorn into a tin and give it as a present.
8. NUTRITIOUS: Popcorn is healthy! It has one of the highest levels of polyphenols of any plant food, contains quite a bit of fiber and antioxidants, and according to Joe Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, “It’s the only snack that is 100 percent whole grain.”
9: UNIFIER: Anyone who smells popcorn will want to be your friend.
10. MEMORIES: Popcorn is one of those foods that instantly transports you to a different place: a movie theater, a circus, a carnival, a street fair.
To be fair, popcorn does have two notable — and lamentable — down sides. One, it gets stuck in your teeth, no matter how how you try to avoid it. And two, once it’s removed from the pot, the remaining shells look like burned ladybug corpses. But other than that… popcorn is the best.
–Photo by Linnell Esler
