Huge Amounts Of Fat In Microwave Popcorn

Author: Alexander Bruni Time for reading: ~1 minutes Last Updated: August 08, 2022

Huge Amounts Of Fat In Microwave Popcorn

The total fat content in a package of popcorn for the microwave is about a quarter of the total mass of the product.

How much and what fat is contained in microwave popcorn? Depending on the type and import of the product, it may contain palm oil and artificial stabilizers and flavors.

Palm oil is especially harmful to health, because over 49% of its content is represented by saturated fatty acids. In combination with the presence of palmitic acid , palm oil is highly predisposed to raising blood cholesterol and can dramatically increase the chance of developing cardiovascular disease .

According to the World Health Organization, the combination of palmitic acid, and saturated fatty acids increases the risk of hypertension , atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease with the same force with which they do and trans - fat present in margarine and other hydrogenated vegetable oils.

The attached video illustrates exactly how much fat is in three particularly popular types of microwave popcorn. The weight of the products was measured once after unpacking and a second time after washing the fat from the corn kernels.

The measured initial values for the contents of the three packages were 85 g, 88 g and 98 g: standard weight for these packaged foods. However, after washing the fat, they weighed 69 g, 73 g and 70 g, respectively.

This means that about a quarter of the total mass of a popular breakfast is made up of saturated fat, between 12 and 29 grams per pack.

In addition, the thermal decomposition of glycerol in palm oil results in the release of toxic and fetid acrolein . Although it is formed in microscopic quantities of the order of micrograms per kilogram of total mass, there is no conclusive evidence of its safety.

For more information, watch the attached video:

Huge Amounts Of Fat In Microwave Popcorn

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