Microwave popcorn is how I survive some weeks. My kids come into the classroom and moan, "You had popcorn again!? And you didn't save us any?" No, I never save them any. It has been known to be my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the day.
Typical microwave popcorn, however, hardly qualifies as eating healthy, what with the artificial flavoring and preservatives and diacetyl, which might be nice in a good beer but is definitely not nice for the factory workers or that guy who ate two bags a day for years.
Okay, I realize that even totally plain, air-popped corn as your sole food for the day also hardly qualifies as healthy, but it's better than my daily breakfast my senior year in high school - peppermint Certs and a Pepsi.
Do they even make Certs anymore? Two mints in one!
Just to clarify: totally not my mom's fault. There was real food available; I just preferred sleeping to eating and would hit the snooze button rather than take the 10 minutes necessary to eat cereal. I'd usually have Certs in my bag, and there was a vending machine on campus. These days, I have Lifesavers, purchased in bulk for the cheapest per candy price available, and I bring my Pepsi from home, having purchased it in 12-packs on sale with a coupon. I also try my very best not to have either for breakfast.
But back to my original point, which was the life-saving qualities of microwave popcorn and how unhealthy it is.
It's also not very cheap. Unless you get the ActII kind from Costco in bulk with a coupon, and even then it's more than 50 cents a bag and, frankly, kinda icky and chemically-tasting.
You can see how microwave popcorn, while having amazing life-saving properties, can be a bit of a problem.
The problem disappears, however, when you realize that you can make your own microwave popcorn bag for just pennies!
I suppose, technically, everything can be made for pennies if you have enough of them. But I'm talking about just a few measly pennies that don't even add up to enough to exchange for another coin (i.e., less than 5 cents).
Does anyone remember when microwave popcorn became all the rage? The bags were supposedly super-special microwave-friendly high-tech bags, and they were the reason our popcorn popped so nicely.
Lies. All lies.
Your corn can be popped in a plain ol' brown paper sack. Put a couple of tablespoons of popcorn in a bag, fold the top of the bag, and staple it shut with two neat staples. Or - if you're a big ol' chicken like me and remember that time you put a chocolate Santa in the microwave because you were low on chocolate chips that you planned to melt into hot fudge sauce, and your friend Brenda said "just put the Santa in," but you knew you weren't supposed to put metal in a microwave because your grandma had been very, very clear about the dangers of microwaves and metal, so you carefully took all the foil off, except maybe you missed some of it, and the next thing you knew the microwave was on fire - you can use tape.
You can even save and reuse the paper bag, thus saving your life, your money, and the trees. It's a win win win.
1 hour ago
2 comments:
Brilliant! I've never been brave enough to try this, but now maybe I will. My mom and aunt like to give the kids microwave popcorn for a treat and it just makes me cringe. It doesn't smell right. :P (Why yes, yes I do have some neurosis. Why do you ask?)
I don't think you need neuroses to think microwave popcorn just doesn't smell right. ;) I think it just doesn't feel right.
Post a Comment