The calories, on the other hand, may show up much sooner…and where you least want them.īudget 670 for a small and 1,200 for a medium or large.

It takes years to clog those arteries…and years for your blood pressure to respond to the salt shock (550 milligrams of sodium-a third of a day's worth-for a small and 980 mg for a medium or large). Suggestion: Move your cardiologist's phone number to your speed dial before the lights go down. Of course, a large means a free refill (Yay!), so there's no limit to the damage you can do. And it gets worse from there.Ī 'medium' (20 cups) or a 'large' (also 20 cups) has 60 grams of sat fat. So even if you split it with a friend (unlikely), you each get nearly a day's worth of artery paste. Translation: A 'small' popcorn (that's about 11 cups' worth) with no buttery topping has 34 grams of saturated fat. (In contrast, lard is 40 percent saturated.) It pops in coconut oil, which is 90 percent saturated. With 548 theaters in 39 states plus the District of Columbia, Regal is the largest chain in the United States. For Cinemark, our samples came from Texas, Illinois, and Maryland.) For two of the chains-Regal and AMC-we went to theaters in the Washington, D.C., area. But just to be sure, we analyzed samples from three different theaters for each chain. (Each gave us nutrition facts for its popcorn. Here's what we found when we sent samples of popcorn and toppings from the three largest theater chains to an independent lab for analysis.

bag of potato chips, and that's assuming your theater pops in the best oil available and you get it without the 'buttery' topping. Eating a tub of movie theater popcorn is more like eating an 8 oz. Turns out the Popcorn Board is right…if you're talking low-fat popcorn or (fat-free) air-popped. It sounds like they're munching on a stalk of broccoli, for goodness sakes. Maybe that's one reason people fork over $4 to $8 for a bag or tub of popcorn when they enter a movie theater.

'It's a whole grainįood that's low in calories and fat and it's a complex carbohydrate.' 'Did you know that popcorn is among the healthiest-and tastiest-snacks around?' asks the Web site of the Popcorn Board, an industry group.

Best movie theater popcorn