"Popcorn's Dark Secret" said the headline. Dark secret?! I thought. What have they been hiding? Child labor on popcorn farms? Popcorn as a cover for drug cartels?
Apparently the dark secret is that a tub of butter-laden, over-salted movie theater popcorn is full of fat and sodium. Um, not exactly a secret -- but the fact that some theaters advertised their popcorns as significantly fewer calories is a pretty dastardly lie.
My own popcorn secret is not so dark. I've used olive oil instead of butter for the past couple years, sprayed straight from my Crate and Barrel oil mister. It started as a health effort, but it's honestly just way easier than melting butter. You can evenly cover a big bowl with a tablespoons or two of oil without greasing up any extra dishes. It tastes just as good (IMO, and Brian doesn't seem to mind). And while it's not exactly a health food, it's definitely an improvement: the calories in olive oil are about the same as in butter, but the saturated fat is about one-fourth.
If you want to avoid the sodium, try substituting another flavor for at least part of your salt. Pepper is easy (though, cartoonishly, it makes me sneeze). A ground spice like mustard, coriander, or nutmeg could be interesting. Some herbs, like dill, work well too, but they must be light enough to stick to the popped corn when you sprinkle it over.
I think this is plenty of motivation for us to all have our own popcorn secrets.
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