Movie theater popcorn

Coconut Chucker

Not A Dude
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Mar 27, 2011
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USA and New Zealand
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1999 BMW 323i
So I was bored at work today, and using a standard that I learned recently plus nutrition information, I calculated the caloric content of the various popcorn sizes where I work and the butter. I just felt like sharing my results, well, somewhere. Unfortunately, all my calculations are done in Imperial units, since I work at a theater in the United States. Would make more sense in metrics to me, but I did it all in Imperial and am too lazy to convert.

Standards applied:

1 cup (8 oz.) popcorn popped in canola oil = 55 calories (source: http://www.popcorn.org/)
1 tbps "buttery topping" = 130 calories (source: the nutrition label on the bottles of it at work)

1 small (46 oz.) popcorn = 316 calories
1 medium (85 oz.) popcorn = 584 calories
1 large (130 oz.) popcorn = 894 calories
1 extra large (170 oz.) popcorn = 1169 calories*

*-my theater does not offer this size, but it is an industry standard that is offered at some places in the United States, namely the large first-run chains.

Using a fairly imprecise way of measuring, I concluded that one "squirt" of butter from our electric-pumped butter machine was approximately 3.5 tablespoons, for 455 calories. Hence, using 1 for the small and medium and 2 for the large (and presumably the extra-large if we sold it), you get the following:

Small = 771 calories
Medium = 1039 calories
Large = 1804 calories
X-Large = 2079 calories

Kind of gross to think about, isn't it?
 
LALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE DELICIOUS BUTTERY CRUNCH.

But honestly, movie theater popcorn isn't worth it AT ALL if it isn't fresh popped.
 
Wow, butter has a lot of calories.

Is it weird that my daily diet is around 1500 calories but I could easily add an extra large cinema popcorn to that and pretty much nothing would happen to me?
 
Meh...I never get popcorn (or any food items for that matter) at the movies. My heart will thank me for that! :lol:

Edit: A large popcorn with butter has 684 calories more than a Big Mac combo (with medium fries and medium coke)...:blink:
 
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