National Popcorn Day is just around the corner. And Cinemark cinemas is offering a popcorn deal too good for fans to pass up. Bring in your own bucket and the cine concession will fill it up for $5! No ticket purchase is necessary…
Doctor-approved homeade, herbed and spiced popcorn…
There are a couple of limitations on the BYOBucket deal… It’s only good on the big day, January 19. And your bucket can’t be bigger than 400 fl. oz. / 11.8 litres – equivalent to 2 normal XL Cinemark pop-corns.
Nevertheless…
It’s not often that you see a deal like this now-a-days – with no ticket purchase necessary! So popcorn fans ought to take advantage. Of course, popcorn is one of the cheapest foods a snack purveyor can sell. It starts out with inexpensive dry corn… Then multiplies the size of the product as many as 10 times or more by inflating it with air!
The profit margin is even greater than that of coffee and tea, or soda fountain drinks. Or even French Fries, for that matter.
So it’s not costing Cinemark a whole lot to pull the promo stunt. And popcorn lovers will consider it a huge boon. So, it’s a win-win winner.
Drawbacks?
As a slew of recent Netflix movies and films have reminded us recently, ‘no good deed goes unpun-ished’. The popcorn deal brings with it a few drawbacks already well-publicised online and in the mainstream media. But worth reprising, nonetheless…
Potatoes are often used to illustrate the woes of a good food gone rogue. “It’s not the spuds them-selves,” I’ve explained in this space more than once. “It’s what we put on them (and in them) that makes them unhealthy.”
Popcorn falls into the same category. ‘Plain’ – that is, without butter, caramel or other flavourings or coatings, popcorn is perfectly healthy. Low in Calories, salt, and sugar. And only a little oil is used to pop the kernels – none in an air popper.
Ritual ruination…
But the stuff is flavourless – some say, unpalatable – without something on it. And the primary ‘something’ is usually salt. Usually a lot of it. The best alternative nutritionists and advocates have been able to come up with is a dusting of spices and/or herbs, to punch it up a bit.
Folks also generally bemoan the fact that plain, dry popcorn will get you a bad case of ‘cotton mouth’ faster than you can say ‘choke’. Seems the butter is an indispensable lubricant as well as a flavour enhancer.
Butter has largely been exonerated of its once-claimed dietary evils by recent learned studies. But we’ve been warned – both online and in the mainstream media – that the ‘butter’ used on conces-sion stand popcorn is usually not butter at all.
It is, in fact, low-grade, additive-laced, artifically-flavoured and -coloured vegetable oil. Which is much cheaper and easier to handle than real butter. And that stuff can actually harm you if you consume it regularly, and/or in large quantities.
My take
The drawbacks of ‘commercial’ popcorn – whether at the cinema or off the supermarket shelf – may more than outweigh plain popcorn’s healthfulness. But if you pop the treat yourself home, and per-form due diligence in ‘dressing’ it, you can minimise the potential harm it may do.
The bottom line? The fact is, an occasional splurge on cinema popcorn isn’t going to hurt you. Just don’t make it a regular, or frequent habit…
~ Maggie J.