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Great question! Here at Ask Yahoo! we live on popcorn. Can't get enough of the stuff. It tastes good and it's good for you, or at least that's what we've heard. Especially air-popped. Mmm-mmm, we're going to get some right now... Okay, we're back. Now, let's find the answer to your question... We did a simple search on the word "popcorn." The results offered five Yahoo! categories and more than 150 sites. Happily, the very first result seemed the most relevant, and so we clicked on the commercial Snack Foods > Popcorn category and took a look around. Within the list of popcorn sites, we noticed that
The Popcorn Board was marked with "sunglasses" ( ), meaning that it's a top resource in its category. That was good enough for us. We headed over. As promised, the Popcorn Board offered a lot of content. From nutrition to recipes to advice for teachers, retailers, and cooks -- it's all there. It didn't take us long to find out "why popcorn pops." Their "What Makes It Pop?" page provides a brief explanation. Popcorn's ability to pop lies in the fact that the kernels contain a small amount of water stored in a circle of soft starch inside the hard outer casing. When heated, the water
expands, creating pressure within, until eventually the casing gives way, and the kernels explode and pop, allowing the water to escape as steam, turning the kernels inside out. And under the aptly named Encyclopedia Popcornica, we found a more detailed description of the process. We also found a fascinating tip on how to "recycle" unpopped popcorn kernels, otherwise known as "old maids." Happy popping!
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