What The Popcorn Companies Don't Want You To Know

Behold, the microwave popcorn bag!

Look at it.  It is the epitome of food sophistication. A package of culinary complexity. Food marketing at its most ingenious. Convenient. Delicious. (Expensive.) Proof that man truly is superior to all lower forms of creeping things. 

See all the words and warnings on the packaging?  There are enough letters here to make a dyslexic adult hyperventilate. There are as many directions on it as there are on my baby's car seat. It must have taken years for people to develop and invent this. There are so many warnings in red capital letters on it that it gives you the impression that if you don't put the right side up your home might explode.  

And this is what we used for years....until the night my kids wanted to watch a movie and we had 

no 

more 

popcorn 

bags 

left. 

The babysitter was here and she said, "Do you have any kernels? Because you can just pop it in a paper sack."

"Pop popcorn kernels in a paper sack?" I said. "Does that really work?"

And then it dawned on me what microwave popcorn packages are: popcorn kernels in a paper sack. 

The babysitter demonstrated, and it worked perfectly. I now wonder why I ever bought microwave popcorn at all. Who was the crook who marketed that stuff and conned us into to buying it? 

Not only that, think of all the packaging that goes into those things. There is the bag, the plastic cover, and the box. Think of all the trucks that transport microwave popcorn and the factories that make it while dumping toxic chemicals and sludge in the river and kill the fish and spotted owls etc, etc. 

The popcorn companies have a conspiracy against us, and they call it marketing. 

Dear readers, unite with me in rebellion! Let us take our popcorn back! Let's show those popcorn companies that we aren't as dumb as they think we are! 

Here is a tutorial for all of you who want to make your own popcorn from now on. 

You need a paper bag. 

You need popcorn kernels.

 You might also want butter and salt, but that is up to you.

(Yes, one girl is three inches taller than the other but I promise they are twins.)

Step 1: Put popcorn in the bag. We put in about 2/3 cup.

Step 2: Fold down the top flap of the bag a couple of times and put in the microwave.

Step 3: Push the "popcorn" button.

And here it is!

And you can open the bag without worrying about all those toxic fumes Oprah talks about. 

Then salt it,

Butter it.

And enjoy...

...but don't enjoy it so much that it spills. 

The bag can be reused over and over. No plastic, no box, no factory, no toxic fumes, no dead spotted owls (unless you count the tree that someone cut down to make the paper sack and the land they had to clear to plant the corn, but we'll try not to think about that.)

So there you have it. If I am suddenly found missing in the next couple of days you can bet that the popcorn companies are behind it. But it doesn't matter because NOW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH! 

Save your money. Save the earth. Pop your own popcorn.