Popcorn, a beloved snack enjoyed worldwide for thousands of years, can be a nutritious addition to various diets. But when it comes to the ketogenic diet, a high-fat, very low-carb eating plan, you may wonder is popcorn keto-friendly? This article provides an overview of popcorn’s nutrition, the ketogenic diet, and whether or not the two can coexist.
What is Popcorn?
Popcorn refers to the puffs that form when corn kernels are heated, causing the water inside of them to expand and the kernels to explode. It’s a popular snack that has been enjoyed for thousands of years and is thought to have originated in the Americas. In fact, some studies suggest that people in Peru ate popcorn over 6,000 years ago. Today, people all over the world eat popcorn. It can be made on the stove, in an air popper, or your microwave. It’s also sold already popped. Popcorn is commonly served with melted butter and salt but can be flavored with herbs, spices, cheese, chocolate, or other seasonings, too.
Popcorn Nutrition Facts
Though most think of corn as a vegetable, popcorn is considered a whole grain. Popcorn kernels are harvested when the corn plant is mature and all parts of the grain are intact. Eating whole grains has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and overall mortality. This is because whole grains are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds that provide many health benefits.
Like other whole grains, popcorn is highly nutritious. A 3-cup (24 grams) serving of air-popped popcorn contains:
- Calories: 90
- Fat: 1 gram
- Protein: 3 grams
- Carbs: 18 grams
- Fiber: 4 grams
- Magnesium: 9% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI)
- Phosphorus: 9% of the RDI
- Manganese: 12% of the RDI
- Zinc: 6% of the RDI
Since it’s high in fiber, popcorn is very filling without having a lot of calories. It’s also rich in minerals, including magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, and manganese. What’s more, popcorn offers antioxidants like polyphenols that help prevent cellular damage caused by molecules called free radicals. In particular, polyphenols may offer protective effects against cancer and other chronic diseases.
Read also: Is Popcorn Keto-Friendly?
A cup of plain air-popped popcorn contains:
- Calories: 31
- Total fat: 0.4g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0.6mg
- Total carbohydrate: 6.2g
- Fiber: 1.2g
- Total sugar: 0.1g
- Protein: 1g
Understanding the Ketogenic Diet
The ketogenic diet recommends dramatically reducing your intake of carbs and replacing them with fat. This leads to a metabolic state known as ketosis, during which your body uses byproducts from the breakdown of fat - called ketones - for energy in the absence of carbs. The ketogenic diet is commonly used to help children with epilepsy manage their seizures. It’s also been linked to health benefits like weight loss, as well as improved insulin sensitivity, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes.
To achieve ketosis, you typically need to eat less than 50 grams of carbs per day - though some people may have to reduce carbs even more. As a result, low-carb foods like eggs, meats, fatty fish, avocados, olive oil, nuts, and seeds, as well as non-starchy vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, and bell peppers, form the basis of a keto diet. According to most keto experts, the carb limit refers to net carbs, which are calculated by subtracting the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbs in a serving of food. Based on this logic, whole grains and other fiber-rich carbs contain fewer net carbs than foods without as much fiber, such as refined grains.
The keto diet involves eating a small amount of carbs in an effort to lose weight by pushing the body into a process called ketosis. Our bodies burn carbs as our first-line fuel source. When carb intake is restricted, the body turns quickly to its second option: fat. The strategy has seen success since its beginnings as a treatment option for epilepsy in the 1920s. The only issue is, to maintain a state of ketosis, you need to be intaking only around 25 grams, or less, of carbohydrates per day. The specific cutoff is different for everyone, but regardless, it's a small amount of carbs. For reference, there’s 45 grams of carbs in a single cup of rice. To adhere to that extreme restriction (to which there’s lots of conversation about), you need the right snack tools in your arsenal.
Can Popcorn Fit into a Keto Diet?
Depending on your daily carb limit, popcorn may be able to fit into a keto diet. A typical serving of air-popped popcorn is 3 cups (24 grams) and contains 4 grams of fiber and 18 grams of carbs - or 14 grams of net carbs.
Read also: Popcorn on Keto Diet
Popcorn can easily fit into a keto diet with a daily limit of 50 grams of net carbs and can even be included in more restrictive versions of the keto diet. Not to mention, if you’re following a keto diet to lose weight, popcorn only has 90 calories per serving. However, a 3-cup (24-gram) serving would take up a large part of your daily carb allotment.
If you want to enjoy popcorn on a keto diet, consider limiting other high-carb foods, so you don’t exceed your net carb limit. Bread, chips, sweets, and other refined grains are high in carbs and contain little to no fiber. On the other hand, popcorn and other whole grains have more fiber and fewer net carbs. Therefore, eating popcorn instead of high-carb, low-fiber foods on a keto diet can help satisfy a desire for carbs without going overboard.
Still, it’s important to be aware of portions when eating popcorn on a keto diet since it can be easy to overconsume. To help keep portion size in check and feel more satisfied, you can add fat from coconut oil, butter, or olive oil to popcorn. Making popcorn at home instead of buying pre-popped varieties can also help you control how much you eat and what you add to it.
To make popcorn at home, heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil or butter in a large pot over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of popcorn kernels. Cover the pot with a lid while the kernels pop. After popping stops, remove from heat and season with oil or butter and salt.
How Much Popcorn Can You Eat on Keto?
In 1 cup of popped popcorn, there’s about 6 to 8 grams of carbohydrates. That means that if you’re being reasonably careful and you haven’t eaten any particularly carb-heavy fruits (like an apple) that day, you could have 1 cup of popcorn as a snack. In general, you can eat a small amount of popcorn on the keto diet, but you should probably be careful about it. Don’t let yourself snack mindlessly. Ideally, you should also use oil instead of butter to get more healthy fats.
Read also: Popcorn on a Candida Cleanse
Choosing the Right Popcorn
If you're following a keto diet and want to chow down on popcorn, think about how it's prepared. “Air-popped popcorn is the most nutritious because it has the least amount of fluff - chemicals, food coloring, salt, fat - added to it via processing,” says Lisa Andrews, M.Ed., R.D., owner of Sound Bites Nutrition in Cincinnati, Ohio. On the other hand, she says, traditional microwave popcorn contains a fair amount of hydrogenated oils (unless it’s labeled 94% fat-free) and sodium, as well as diacetyl, a buttery-flavored chemical that’s been linked with lung disease in employees at popcorn-processing plants. “Movie-style popcorn contains Flavacol- an ingredient containing salt, artificial butter flavor, Yellow #5 and Yellow #6. It also has hydrogenated soybean oil meant to mimic butter,” she adds.
With 2 cups of popcorn (with butter), you’re consuming 186 calories. It has about 3 grams of protein, 12 grams of fat, and 18 carbohydrates. About 3 grams of those carbohydrates are fiber, which can’t be digested, so the number is more like 15 grams of carbs that your body is actually getting. There are a surprising number of vitamins contained in popcorn, but mostly in very small quantities. In 2 cups, you can expect 6 mg of calcium, 0.8 mg of iron, 34 mg of magnesium, 80 of phosphorus, and between 70 and 150 mg of potassium. There can also be between 80 and 250 mg of sodium (obviously, the higher number is in more processed products, like microwave popcorn). You can also find trace amounts of nutrients like zinc, copper, selenium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and folate, but not in high enough quantities to be relevant.
Keto-Friendly Popcorn Recipes
Now, if you go ahead and drizzle your popcorn with chocolate syrup, caramel sauce, or another high-sugar topping, then your popcorn, though now more delicious, is likely not keto.
Boosting the Fats (and Flavor)
To bump up the fats (and flavor) in your popcorn snack: "Pair a cup of air popped popcorn with nuts and top with cinnamon and salt to make a trail mix. Or drizzle 1 cup of air popped popcorn with nut butter,” says Rizzo.
Savory Toppings
"The issues starts to happen when you start adding different things to popcorn,” Rissetto says. If you use a sugary topping, like caramel or chocolate, then that's not keto-friendly. But according to Rissetto, if you use savory things like butter, Parmesan cheese, seasonings or a tiny bit of hot sauce, then that would keep the snack within the limits of the diet. Another option is to toss the popcorn in nut butter, or sprinkle on spices like cinnamon and salt.
Other Keto-Friendly Snacks
There are a lot of great foods for keto diets. For snacks, a few slices of avocado on a salad is great. Fruits make an easy snack, although they can add carbs, but a meaty option like bacon, beef jerky, or smoked salmon can be just as easy to grab and eat on the go.
If you’re looking for other snacks to eat on a keto diet, there are a lot of options -and many of them are healthy choices (bacon and pork rinds are exceptions! They're keto-friendly, but really not the best for your body, so we're leaving them off this list). Consider these suggestions from Andrews:
- Celery sticks, radishes, bell pepper strips or mushrooms with guacamole or full-fat cream cheese
- Scrambled or hard-boiled eggs
- Kale chips or roasted Brussels sprouts
- A small portion of nuts or seeds
- String cheese or cheese cubes
- Parmesan or other cheese crisps
- Tuna salad wrapped in lettuce
- Ham and cheese wrapped in lettuce
- Grilled chicken or shrimp kababs
- Shrimp (without cocktail sauce)
- Meatballs made without breadcrumbs or other grains
- Meat “sticks” such as jerky or biltong
Other smart snack picks that work with a keto diet include the following:
- Avocado
- Bacon
- Beef and turkey jerky and meat sticks
- Bone broth
- Cheese sticks
- Cheese crisps
- Chicken salad
- Greek yogurt, plain
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Nuts and seeds
- Olives
- Peanut butter and other nut butters
- Pork rinds
- Raw vegetables (carrots, celery, radishes)
- Salami
- Tuna salad
- Vegetable chips (made with actual veggies)
Keep in mind that while all the foods above fit into a low-carb, high-fat keto diet, you won’t see results on this diet unless you stick with it overall. And for the best outcome, it’s smart to pair any eating plan with regular exercise. If you’re not sure if a keto diet is right for you, talk to your physician or registered dietitian.
Potential Downsides of the Keto Diet
The keto diet is mostly designed for people who want to lose weight fast. This diet can be very good for weight loss, but it isn’t the only option.
It's important for those on the keto diet to remember that you have to stick with it for a decent amount of time to start seeing any weight loss (and if you go off the diet, there’s a good chance you regain any pounds they dropped). And of course, when you have to carefully evaluate everything you eat, not only can that be tiring over time; it can also suck the joy out of eating. “It's really not fun - the mental aspect of it is really tough to do,” says Rissetto.
On top of that, even though you may lose weight, there are long-term health issues to consider with the keto diet. “Excessive carbs from refined foods - sweets, chips, snack foods, fast food - are not the best for overall health, but a keto diet lacks variety and can be low in fiber, which also raises the risk for certain diseases including heart disease and cancer,” Andrews points out. The USDA recommends that women get at least 25 grams of fiber a day, and that men get 38 grams - and research shows that fiber itself promotes a feeling of satiety and, along with helping prevent certain diseases, is good for managing one's weight, if that's the goal. You should always check with your doctor before starting any diet.