Fun Facts About Popcorn

• How high can popcorn kernels can pop: up to 3 feet in the air.

• How many pounds of popcorn Americans consume in a year: 1,124,600,000 or 1.12 billion pounds.

• Percentage of popcorn purchases at retail stores in both raw and popped form and eaten at home: 70 percent.

• Percentage of popcorn bought and eaten at theaters, ballparks and other recreational centers: 30 percent.
• When the bible refers to corn, it's not really referring to corn.

• Corn was used to be a catch all word for the predominant grain in the area. In the case of the bible, it was barley.

• The English Corn Laws, passed in 1436, were actually about wheat.

• Of the five types of corn -- sweet corn, dent corn, flint corn, pod corn and popcorn -- only popcorn pops.

• Each kernel of popcorn contains a tiny drop of water. When heated, the expansion of this water causes the corn to pop.

• It was the experimentation of popping popcorn with microwaves in 1945 that led to the creation of the microwave oven.

• Ration of yellow to white popcorn kernels sold in bags: 9 to 1.

• Most popcorn comes in two basic shapes when it's popped: snowflake and mushroom. Snowflake is used in movie theaters and ballparks because it looks and pops bigger. Mushroom is used for cnady confections because it doesn't crumble.

• The oldest corn: popcorn, which evolved from a wild grass that grew thousands of years ago.

• Varieties of modern popcorn that can grow wild: none. Due to the breeding of hybrids, all varieties of corn are in need of man-made assistance.

• Most of the world's popcorn is grown in these states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio.

• The peak period for popcorn sales for home consumption: Fall.

• Popcorn sales taper off during Spring and Summer.

• Almost all the popcorn consumed throughout the world is grown in the United States.

• Ideal moisture content of popcorn: 13.5 percent. To achieve the best popability, the moisture content of popcorn should be from 13 percent to 14.5 percent.

• How much popcorn expands over ts original kernel size: from 40 to 42 times; some hybrids expand over 45 times.

• Percentage of popped kernels that good popcorn should produce: at least 98%.

• One gram of popcorn kernels yields: 43 to 44 cubic centimeters of popped corn - about 22% more than in the mid-1950s.

• Since 1936, popcorn yield has almost doubled.

• Want to study popcorn? Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, currently conducts hybrid research on popcorn.

• The world's largest popcorn ball, as measured by th Guiness Book of World Records is 12 feet in diameter, containing 2,000 pounds of popcorn, 40,000 pounds of sugar, 280 gallons of corn syrup, and 400 gallons of water.