…that turn out to be good for you. It’s hard to reconcile this, though:
…he scientific consensus on whether saturated fats are bad for us is changing. Now researchers are stressing that saturated fats like coconut oil actually lower bad cholesterol in our bodies.
With this:
If you consider popcorn something to douse with “butter-flavored topping” and shovel in your mouth at the multiplex, then keep it on the “bad” list. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest has concluded that movie theater popcorn—a medium tub, mind you—has 1,200 calories and 60 grams of the worst kind of saturated fat.
So what is the “worst kind of saturated fat”? I see nothing wrong with butter on popcorn (and to the degree there is, it’s the popcorn, not the butter).
She also reinforces the myth that “low calories” = “healthy.”
The article argues at cross purposes. The “butter” at most movie theaters is … flavored coconut oil.
If it’s from CSPI, you can simply ignore it as non-science in the first place.
I first began to question the accuracy of any of these food warnings decades ago following the Canadian saccharin study. IIRC, the study used dosages equivalent to drinking several hundred saccharin beverages a day for a long time resulted in an increased chance of bladder cancer. Based on that, I decided saccharin must be one of the safest things on Earth.
Over the years, we get whipsawed by one supposed study after another telling us contradictory things about what is and what isn’t safe to eat. Frankly, I’ve reached the point where they can take their studies and shove them. There’s so much contradictory advice that it’s apparant that none of them know what they’re talking about. At this point in my life (56), I’m going to eat what I want in reasonable moderation and food nazis like Michelle Obama can kiss my ass. None of us get out of here alive so we might as well enjoy our limited time as best we can. Good food is one of life’s great pleasures.
Rand, that the “butter flavored topping” of movie theater notoriety referred to has absolutely nothing to do with butter and is an utterly misleading (by design) term. It does not taste like butter. It is not made of butter. It doesn’t even look or smell like butter. The only thing it has in common with butter is the spelling.
The stuff is utterly vile.
What kind of fats are in it? I would guess trans fats, hydrogenated. But whatever is actually in it, I don’t see how it could be considered healthy, because I can’t imagine something that tastes that bloody awful being healthy, or even fit for human consumption.
As a healthier and tastier alternative to “butter flavored topping”, I suggest getting your movie house popcorn plain, going out to your car in the parking lot (assuming the engine is still hot), and putting the popcorn under your oil pan drain. Loosen the drain nut a bit, allowing the hot, dirty engine oil to drizzle over your popcorn.
I didn’t say it was butter. I’m pointing out that she calls it the “worst type of saturated fat,” when she doesn’t say what it is. If it’s hydrogenated transfat, that’s not a saturated fat.
I still remember when hydrogenated transfats were considered ‘healthier’ because they had no cholesterol. Every single time I see the agribusiness attempting to promote something cheap that tastes nasty I just ignore it. Butter from milkfata is the real deal. It has retinol and other useful nutrients in it.
I always get the small tub of popcorn, with “butter”, and it’s rare that I manage to eat even half of it.
Who pays for the Center for Science in the Public Interest?
Historically, movie theater popcorn was done in coconut oil. But margarine was “better”.
“Advocacy against coconut and palm oils in the 1970s and 1980s due to their perceived danger as a saturated fat caused companies to substitute trans fats instead of them, unaware of their health-damaging effects” (Coconut oil wiki) //
McNamara, D. J. (2010). “Palm oil and health: A case of manipulated perception and misuse of science”. Journal of the American College of Nutrition 29 (3 Suppl): 240S–244S. PMID 20823485