October has been celebrated as National Popcorn Poppin’ month for the last 30 years, but it wasn’t until 1999 that Dan Glickman, who was Secretary of Agriculture at the time, declared it as such. Here are some fun facts about those delicious little kernels: • Popcorn is one of the lowest calorie snack foods having only 31 calories per cup if air-popped and 55 calories per cup if oil-popped. • There are six types of maize/corn- pod, sweet, flour, dent, flint and popcorn. Popcorn is the only one that pops. • Popcorn needs between 13.5-14 percent moisture to pop. • Of the popcorn grown in the United States most is grown in the Midwest: Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri. • There are two basic shapes of popcorn for most popcorn when it’s popped: snowflake and mushroom. Movie theaters and ballparks use the snowflake type because it looks and pops bigger.
