When it comes to thinking about healthy snacks, popcorn might not be the first thing to come to your mind. We typically associate popcorn with the butter drenched heaviness we find at movie theatre, bringing in more than a thousand calories. However, popcorn might just be the healthiest snack you could have. Just adding 30 calories to do your daily intake, popcorn offers a number of health benefits as well. Let’s take a look at some nutritional benefits of popcorn.
Popcorn Gives You Something Fruits and Vegetables Can’t
Fruits and vegetables are heavily diluted and are practically 90% of water. This makes the polyphenol amount in them low. Polyphenols are chemicals that are highly beneficial to the human body. They promote detoxification of harmful chemicals, act as antioxidants, and help decrease inflammation inside the body. A single serving makes up around 13% of an average American’s intake of polyphenol, making them quite the healthy thing to include in your diet.
Popcorn Can Help You Fight Diseases
One thing polyphenols are quite favored for is their help in fighting diseases. Polyphenols help decrease the activity of the enzymes that are promoted by cancer. Such enzymes promote the growth of cancerous cells and allow the disease to spread. Popcorn, with their large concentration of polyphenol can help you fight the wretched and deadly disease.
Furthermore, popcorn can help with a number of other diseases due to their high polyphenol content. Cardiovascular diseases are some that polyphenols have a major effect on. Polyphenols reduce inflammation and decrease the chances of the body’s blood vessels accruing plaque. These two factors make popcorn a great snack to have if you constantly worry about getting heart problems.
Popcorn Gives You the Grain Content You Need
One aspect that sets popcorn apart from all others is the fact that it is nearly 100% whole grain. A single serving of the snack can fill you up with 70% of the daily grain content you need. This makes them nutritionally beneficial to the human body on top of being a healthy snack.
Popcorn Can Help Fight Digestive Issues
Along with the grain, another nutrient that popcorn is rich in is fiber. They provide a large amount of fiber to the human body. Fiber, as we all know, is a key factor in helping with digestion. Hence, the consumption of popcorn can vastly improve digestive issues and could help you get out of that problem.
Popcorn Is Good for Your Weight
Not only is popcorn light in weight, but they it is also all starch. This means that it does not need to be converted by the body into carbohydrates and fats, something that fattens you up. Moreover, popcorn is also quite low on sugar content. It does not cause blood glucose spikes inside the body like other snacks tend to do and thus they are good for consumption even if you have a problem with diabetes. Popcorn is simply a healthy snack to eat on top of being very tasty.