There is almost nothing more American than going to the movies and eating a tub of buttery popcorn and washing it down with a big Coke-unless it is hot dogs and beer at the baseball game, or apple pie at a picnic. So oddly enough, much of the country is overweight (myself included) and struggling to avoid diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a myriad of other health problems. It really isn’t a big shocker when we are mislead and misinformed about the food we buy.
We live in an odd society, where we buy fat laden fast foods while in our car and pull over to eat them. We can’t even bother to get out and walk inside. We chow down on fatty McDonald’s burgers with deep fried potatoes and wash it down with a sugary soda. But at least popcorn can’t be that bad-right? Wrong! Through an article at the Huffington Post, I was alerted to a study that was conducted on movie food. Did you know that instead of your medium popcorn and soda, you could gobble down three Quarter Pounders with a dozen pats of butter? Good thing you had that salad for lunch!
The concessions from Regal, the country’s biggest movie chain, have 1,160 calories and three days worth – 60 grams – of fat. Regal said that the medium popcorn had 720 calories and the large had 960, but CSPI’s tests found those numbers to be understated. A small popcorn at Regal had 670 calories – the same as a Pizza Hut Personal Pepperoni Pan Pizza. Even if you share a small popcorn – it’s still about a day’s worth of saturated fat per person, according to CSPI.
Enjoy the movie, but skip the snack!
