Small format
Calories: 330 to 480
Saturated fat: 2 g to 13 g (depending on whether the popcorn is popped in canola or coconut oil3)
Sodium: 220 mg to 740 mg
With the butter, addâ € ¦
Calories: 190 to 250
Saturated fat: 3 g to 17 g (depending on whether it is a buttery or real buttery filling4)
Medium format
Calories: 500 to 780
Saturated fat: 2 g to 20 g
Sodium: 340 mg to 1090 mg
With the butter, addâ € ¦
Calories: 250 to 340
Saturated fat: 4 g to 23 g
Large format
Calories: 730 to 1120
Saturated fat: 3 g to 38 g
Sodium: 530 mg to 1480 mg
With the butter, addâ € ¦
Calories: 310 to 420
Saturated fat: 6 g to 29 g
Soft drinks and chocolate
And we have not yet counted the soft drink … After all, a well-salted popcorn makes you thirsty! According to the cinema chains, a “small” soft drink corresponds to a volume of 450 ml to 600 ml. It contains 150-200 calories and 11-15 tsp. of sugar. The large format corresponds to a volume of 1.2 l. It contains 450 calories and 31 tbsp. of sugar.
It is not finished. Most cinema chains tempt us with threesomes which, in addition to the pop corn and soft drink, are accompanied by a candy, such as a bar of chocolate or liquorice. The formats are often stronger than normal. The CSIP team has launched an assault on the candy counters. Results: Eating half of a 250g bag of licorice is enough to ingest 400 calories and 13 tbsp. of sugar. A 150g bag of M&M Peanut provides 790 calories and 18 tbsp. of sugar.
Respond to this news in our blog Popcorn and movies: do you know how many calories, fat and salt is in a bag?
Dominique Forget – PasseportSanté.net
1. To find out more about the CSPI: www.cspinet.org
2. Movie Theaters Fill Bags … and Bellies, Jayne Hurley and Bonnie Liebman, Nutrition Action, December 2009.
3. The AMC chain pops its corn in coconut oil, which is very high in saturated fat, while the other two use unsaturated canola oil.
4. In return, AMC uses a filling that tastes of butter, less rich in saturated fat than the real butter offered by the other two chains.
