Oil-popped popcorn is not as likely to crash-and-burn your diet as a bowl of ice cream, but the oil content does affect its impact. Depending on what kind of diet you're on, oil-popped popcorn can be an appropriate snack. It's relatively low in calories and carbohydrates, but a portion of the calories come from unhealthy fat.
Calories
A cup of popcorn popped in oil has 55 calories per cup, about seven times more than a cup of iceberg lettuce, but less than a quarter of those you'd consume if you drank the same size portion of a vanilla milkshake. If you're on a low-calorie diet, it's a good choice, unless you add butter. Even a little butter pushes the calorie content up to more than 130 calories per cup serving.
Fats
If you pop your popcorn in oil, slightly more than half of the calories will come from fat, or 3.09 g per 1-cup serving. However, most of it is healthier, polyunsaturated fat. Only slightly more than 0.5 g of the fat content comes from saturated fat, the bad kind, but if you're on a low-fat diet, air-popped popcorn would probably be a better choice.
Carbohydrates
A cup of popcorn has slighty more than 6 g of carbohydrates, the same whether you air-pop it or oil-pop it, because vegetable oils do not contain carbs. If you're on a low-carbohydrate diet, and if you watch your carb intake throughout the rest of the day, popcorn can fit into your meal plan as a healthy snack. More than 1 g of those carbohydrates is in the form of fiber, which is indigestible. Although the theory is not supported by the Food and Drug Administration, some low-carb diet plans indicate that you can subtract fiber grams from carbohydrate grams for a net carb count, the total your body is probably actually absorbing. If you're counting net carbs as opposed to total carbs, a cup of oil-popped popcorn has only 5.19 g of carbohydrates.
Other Nutritional Facts
Popcorn is a whole grain. A cup has more than 97 mg of sodium, but this is still only 4 percent of your recommended daily value based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet. Popcorn is also a source of magnesium, zinc and iron, and it provides some B vitamins as well.
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