Once You Pop, You Can't Stop!

I don't know about you but when I get home at night I'm a snacker. When I’m prepping for dinner I snack. When I prep meals for the next day I snack. My choices aren't terrible but I'm eating when I shouldn't be. Often times I find I'm craving a salty, crunchy snack. Popcorn is my go to. Fresh popped with a little salt and melted butter and my craving is satisfied with out filling up on unwanted calories. 

Fun popcorn facts: 

Air popped popcorn has only 31calories/serving. 

Oil popped has 55 calories/serving. 

Popcorn is full of fiber without sugar or additives filling you up with out making you feel like a million pounds. 

Recently, I decided to give the old stovetop popping method a try. I was inspired by a sample of popcorn I tried from a local vendor at Fresh Acres. The gentleman was the actual corn farmer from Enfield, CT and he smartly made his with coconut oil. The taste was uniquely coconuty and I had to have more! How hard could it be? With coconut oil already at home and a package of locally grown popcorn I headed home to pop some up. The result was amazing and I've found myself making a batch almost every other night.

When your next salty crunchy craving strikes try popping your own popcorn in coconut oil. The instructions below will get you one of the best bowls of popcorn you’ve had. Be careful though, once you pop…you can’t stop. 

Ingredients:

2-3 TBPS of coconut oil (high smoke point)

1/3-1/2 cup of high quality popcorn kernels (I used Little Pops a local product from Enfield, CT)

3 QT Stock Pot

Butter & Salt to taste (optional)

1. Heat oil over medium high heat, with 3-4 test kernels in oil.

2. When test kernels pop, remove the popped kernels.

3. Remove pot from heat & pour unpopped kernels in a single layer into the bottom of the pan. Cover and let sit for 30s.

4. Return the covered pot to the heat providing a gentle shake once popping starts. Feel free to vent the steam a little bit to create crispier, drier popcorn.

5. When the popping starts to slow remove from the heat and transfer to a large bowl.

6. If using butter, melt in the same pan and pour over the popcorn with a sprinkle of salt to taste.

7. Eat & Enjoy!

For more popcorn recipe ideas use this link: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_popcorn/

Recycling Day

This past Monday I was out early walking the dog, just like every other day, but since it was Monday the town’s trash & recycling containers were out waiting for pick up. As Pepper and I were side stepping around our hundredth recycling bin I finally started paying attention to what was inside. The overwhelming majority contained fast food cups, pizza boxes, plastic water bottles, and if you were to look in mine a few too many plastic Starbucks cups.

Why, on this day, did the contents of my neighbors recycling containers effect me so much? I have no idea, but the thought of super size me fountain soda cups along side pizza boxes and Burger King bags made me curious about the damage these products have already caused.

Finishing our walk I told Pepper (don’t you talk to your dog?) that there were 2 issues at hand. 1. The mass amounts of trash produced from all of the fast food eaten every day. And 2. The effects the mass-produced, high caloric fast food has had on the American public.

I don’t consider myself an overly earth conscious individual. I do my part and recycle. I now turn my nose up at all bottled water because I have my CPC Hydroflask by my side most times of the day. On a closer look though I’m just as guilty at adding to the nation trash production based solely on the number of plastic Starbucks cups I toss out on a weekly basis. Curiosity got the best of me and I researched a few stats about trash production and recycling. In the United States we throw about $11.4 BILLION work of recyclable trash. Most of which is single use plastic packaging. What the hell?! It’s time to do my part and start using my umpteen reusable ice coffee cups I have sitting around the house.

Fortunately, I was noticing most of the fast food containers & boxes in the recycling bin but the down side is that there were a lot of containers; everything from Burger King to Little Ceasars. Bags. Boxes. Plastic Soda containers. Piles of instantaneous, high calorie, fat ridden food that has help contribute to turning a third of the nations 20 and over population obese. Again curiosity got the better of me as I Googled American Fast Food eating habits. What I found was telling of how the world in which we live in is now driven around convenience and over committed schedules.

• ·      American’s consumer more packaged food than fresh food – 31% to be precise.
• ·      20% of meals are consumed in the car.
• ·      Children 2-18 consume 3 snacks a day accounting for almost a third of their daily calories.
• ·      Portion Sizes have gotten bigger – no surprise there
• ·      American are eating out more, consuming 11% of their daily calories from fast food.
• ·      Final fun fact…10 BILLION donuts are consumed every year in America. I’m guilty of enjoying a delicious coconut donut that will sit like a lead weight until dinner on the rarest of occasions but it seems as if there are a few too many over indulging.

So, why the blog? Why bother taking the time to give you a few facts that you may have already known? Consider it a wake up call. Most of you, if not all of you, reading this workout regularly and do your best to feed yourself and your family real food. But, as time and effort become short it becomes all too easy to grab a quick on to go meal or drink and toss the remnants in the closest trash bin. In the upcoming weeks as spring sport schedules continue to ramp up and you get lost in the spring weather that has finally decided to grace us with it’s presence do your part. Buy a CPC hyrdoflask for all of your cold and hot beverage needs. Hit up the local farmer’s markets and plan out high quality meals and snacks for you and the family. Sign your kids up for YTT to keep them active. And don’t forget to recycle those plastic containers when you have no other option.

SK

If you’d like more fun facts take a look at a few of the sites I found.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-american-eating-habits

http://stateofobesity.org/facts-trends-in-americans-eating-habits/