Community Garden Magazine Issue Ten June 2016 Community Garden Magazine Issue Ten June 2016 | Page 36
Popcorn retains the endosperm, germ and bran for fiber that sloughs your blood vessel and
artery walls of excess cholesterol, helping to optimize cholesterol levels.4 Simultaneously,
your risk of heart attack, stroke and atherosclerosis — aka hardening of the arteries — is
lowered.
For these reasons, your heart doesn't have to work so hard; your blood vessels and arteries
allow blood to flow through at the optimum rate rather than slowing down, thickening and
causing problems like those mentioned above.
Popcorn Contains Valuable Fiber
That same 3.5-ounce serving of popcorn contains 389 calories and 15 grams of fiber.5 With
it you get 78 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of protein and 5 grams of fat. Altogether,
popcorn is a very substantial food, with physical benefits for every one of those vitamins
and minerals.
Fiber is so important that if people ate the amount they should — I recommend consuming
about 25 to 50 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories consumed per day — ailments like type
2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease would likely be much less prevalent.
However, most people eat far less than those amounts. According to Authority Nutrition:6
"When the body has ample amounts of fiber, it regulates the release and management
of blood sugar and insulin levels better than people with low levels of fiber."7
Popcorn also provides antioxidants, which in turn stave off such undesirable features
of premature aging such as muscle weakness, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, cognitive
decline, dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Even things like wrinkles and age spots may be
diminished by this one popcorn component.8
Certainly not least, fiber is important because it encourages regularity by stimulating your
intestinal muscles and digestive juices, which keeps everything moving through on a regular
basis.
The less time food remains in your colon, the better. When it sticks around in your
digestive tract for too long, constipation and other problems can occur.
Popcorn and Weight Loss
Because of the fiber, relatively low calories and other factors already discussed, popcorn can
help with weight loss.
In fact, one study comparing how full people felt after eating either popcorn or potato
chips found that popcorn did a better job of satisfying consumers, which could ultimately
36