Random Musings of an Eco Warrior

A few months ago I went to a neighborhood supermarket to do a little food shopping. On my list was to get a BAG of popcorn. While I usually buy organically grown popcorn at my local downtown natural foods store, I was out of it and had no plans to go downtown anytime soon, so decided, just this once, to get the supermarket variety. I located the snacks aisle where I found about a 6 ft wide by 6 ft tall display of popcorn, all being the boxed microwave variety. I searched and searched but there was not a BAG or JAR of popcorn to be found. So I went to the front of the store to find the manager to ask where the “regular” popcorn was, he quickly pointed me to the aisle I had just visited. So I trudged back to that aisle to check again but alas, in my absense, no BAGS or JARS of popcorn had magically appeared on the shelves. I commented to my daughter on the fact that this store apparently did not appear to sell “real” popcorn. Another shopper overheard me and informed me that this store had not carried the “old fashioned” type of popcorn I was looking for for several years. “Old fashioned”? Since when is it old fashioned to want to buy popcorn with only one ingredient on the label, that ingredient being POPCORN? A quick look at the sometimes 1 inch long ingredients lists on boxes of microwave popcorn would send chills down any thinking persons spine. Call me crazy, but when I buy popcorn, that is exactly what I want, popcorn. I can add my own butter and salt if I so choose but would certainly not add the chemicals found on a typical box of microwave popcorn. I am not quite sure what nutritional purpose the extensive list of chemicals serve (perhaps someone can enlighten me), but I can tell you one thing, the purpose that list served for me was to tell me not to buy it!