National Popcorn Day

Well as today is officially National Popcorn Day today, so I thought it would be practical to tell you some interesting things about popcorn. I don’t really like popcorn, but I’ll eat it if it’s free!

Popcorn is the only type of corn that will pop. Popcorn has a scientific name, which is ‘Zea Mays Everta’. It has been round for thousands of years, so even the cave men could have eaten it while watching a film.

Popcorn was introduced to cinemas and theatres in 1912, although the owners were not too keen on selling it because they thought it would be a distraction from the film. Although later on they realised it wasn’t so bad.

This done quite well at the start but when popcorn was being sold outside of the cinemas/theatres, the owners were becoming very concerned that this would ruin it for their businesses, when actually it made business better.

These days, popcorn alone reaches a greater profit than actually selling the film tickets, especially in America. Popcorn also makes people thirsty and more likely to buy extra drinks, which also earns them more money.

Popcorn pops when it reaches a temperature of about 175°C. Popcorn is high in fibres, low in calories, fat and sugar although the toppings usually contain all the extra sugars, fats and calories. If I was forced to eat popcorn, it would have to have a toffee topping, mainly because it destroys the main taste of the actual Popcorn.

Popped popcorn comes in two shapes, these are mushroom and snowflake. Cinemas and theatres prefer snowflake, mainly because it’s bigger, so they could put less in a box and it will still look full, whereas if they used mushroom shaped popcorn, they would have to put more in, which wouldn’t earn them as much money.



Nebraska produces more popcorn than any other state in America; it produces roughly 250 million pounds each year, which is a quarter of all the popcorn made annually in the United States.

There is an entry for the world's largest popcorn ball in the Guinness Book of World Records, I don’t have the latest version, so if anyone would like to contribute, I will be thankful and you’ll be credited.

Happy Popcorn Day!