Popcorn is a SUPERFOOD

[wtpyrucet]

For months I have been trying to figure out how my Latina roommate has been surviving her diet of mostly Trader Joes brand Takis, Alcohol, sea salt vinegar chips. Literally never has dairy, no greens. ~1-2x a week she makes burgers which I think is her main protein.

BUT She does average about a bag of popcorn a day.

Then I thought about it:

-Takes only 2 minutes to make (low stress, keeps the flow of energy going)
-Palm oil (high saturated fat!)
-Barely any soluble fiber, HIGH insoluble (carrot salad alternative)
-Fantastic Mineral Content. Easy Magnesium (33%!)
-solid Thiamine and B3
-tastes fantastic
-high salt (thermogenic!)

[Mulloch94]

Because the body has an amazing ability to adapt. With the fortification of foods she's probably hitting her basic needs for survival. Most people do, at least in the developed world.

[BioEclectic]

She sounds young, that diet would catch up to her if she kept it up long enough.

Hulls are irritating to the intestine, 2.5 minutes of microwaving is damaging to nutritional content and certain internal plant substances and oils. GMO corn?

Some of these concerns can obviously be mitigated but would roomate even care to bother?

[basednigga2006]

Liar........

[annis]

I eat some of this most days, which saves me the time of popping in coconut oil. (Purchased at Walmart.)
https://shop.lesserevil.com/collections/all/products/himalayan-pink-salt-organic-popcorn

II seem to need starch to get full, not just fruit and juice, and if I don't have time to cook rice or potatoes, popcorn satisfies me. I mostly avoid grains, but this works for me. Anyone else?

[T-3]

@annis Yes, every month or two, I crave popcorn and pop 8 to 10 liters (popped) in coconut oil, primarily (or so I thought before you posted the good info about insoluble fiber and B1) as a medium for my favorite salt: very finely powdered sea salt from Okinawa (yuki-shiyo 雪塩).

"Snow salt, or yukishio（雪塩） in Japanese, is powdery, snow-like salt made from the underground seawater of Okinawa. If you've ever been to Okinawa, you may have seen yukishio displayed in souvenir shops or eaten snacks made with it. ... There are over a dozen minerals in yukishio, including sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, and iron."
https://sakura.co/blog/snow-salt-from-okinawa-why-is-it-the-best

"By passing seawater through Ryukyu Limestone, which is a natural "filter", impurities are removed and at the same time, the calcium contained in the coral dissolves into underground seawater. Yukishio is salt that can only be produced from seawater that takes advantage of the underground characteristics of Miyakojima."
https://exotic-jp.com/en/products/yukisio110gx2-pieces#:~:text=By passing seawater through Ryukyu,the underground characteristics of Miyakojima.

[Milk Destroyer]

Always constipates me without fail

[T-3]

@annis
Is there a PUFA problem to worry about eating popcorn, frozen corn or fresh corn on the cob? I like corn, and I'm sure I eat significantly more corn than Peat did -- and very likely more corn than Peat would have recommended.

Thoughts about downsides of eating popcorn versus other corn, or downsides of eating whole-kernel corn in general?

[annis]

@T-3 Your Okinawan salt looks yummy.

I hope someone else will chime in about the pros and cons of corn. I'm fairly new to the bioenergetic view.

Off the top of my head, I've heard/read that Ray ate corn that was nixtamalized, the process used in Mexico to treat corn for tortillas. Somehow this makes it acceptable.

I've read that corn, although it doesn't contain the gluten found in wheat and other grains that bother so many people, does contain a similar protein that may be irritating.

I've read that popcorn by weight has as many polyphenols as berries.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356482/](link url)

Abstract
... On average, nine commercial popcorn samples contain 5.93 ± 0.92 mg/g of total polyphenols after alkaline hydrolysis and 2.66 ± 0.15 mg/g after in vitro digestion as measured by the Folin–Ciocalteu assay. Furthermore, the popping process was found not to significantly decrease the antioxidant capacity. These results indicate that a considerable amount of the bound polyphenols are bioaccessible. Due to the high levels of bioaccessible polyphenols, popcorn may be a significant source of dietary polyphenol antioxidants.

For background, I'm not a corn eater except for when the organic cob corn comes up at the farmer's market. Also, although I stopped eating grains years ago, I've never had a problem with any of them.

[T-3]

@annis
Thanks for this info re polyphenols in corn and the possibility of gut irritation. I've always felt good eating corn but also circumspect, wondering if, by failing to heed Peat's more cautious approach to corn, I was inadvertently consuming more PUFA or causing endotoxin issues that Peat warned of, which could become a drag on health even if imperceptible to me at the time (feeling good eating corn).

How do we interpret the polyphenol content in the abstract you posted? That it's an antinutrient, therefore a (potential) gut irritant, and avoiding corn (except for the nixtamalized) is best?

[annis]

@T-3 I don't know why Ray preferred nixtamalized corn, and didn't find the answer easily in search.

From what I've read elsewhere, it's the gluten, and in the case of corn and popcorn other gluten-like proteins, that cause the digestive issues.

Ray liked the polyphenols in orange juice particularly. The ferulic acid in popcorn and other grains is also in orange juice, but I don't remember that being the one he liked in orange juice.

I'm sorry I'm not one of the experts.