Friday night is Movie Night at Recycla’s house. Her children put on their pajamas and pick out a good DVD. Recycla’s husband pops popcorn, because who can watch a movie without popcorn? This has been an important tradition for years in Recycla’s household, but it went through a significant change last year.

What changed and why?

Recycla found out that popcorn makes the Top 10 list of foods most often contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals.

Gulp.

After years of serving her children organic apples, strawberries, grapes, and other produce, it turns out Recycla had actually been serving up bowls of toxic treats.

Luckily, there are plenty of organic popcorn options out there.

For the microwave popcorn fans, Recycla highly recommends Newman’s Own Organics popcorn. This is the best microwave popcorn available, period. Instead of the usual greasy, salty microwave popcorn, NOO microwave popcorn is light, not greasy, and not too salty. NOO does not use partially hydrogenated oils or any trans fatty acids. Available in unsalted, lightly salted, and butter flavors.

For popcorn purists, microwave popcorn is not acceptable. They either pop their popcorn on the stove top or in a popper like the Stir Crazy. Recycla had never even heard of the Stir Crazy until recently when Enviro Girl told her about it and about how much her own family uses theirs. So now Recycla is planning to get her own family a Stir Crazy and make the switch from microwave popcorn.

But what about the actual popcorn? What to get? Recycla remembered that NOO sold regular popcorn but hasn’t been able to find it and it appears they’ve discontinued this product. Further searching led to the discover that Recycla’s local Whole Foods doesn’t carry any non-microwave popcorn at all. Instead, she found organic popcorn at the local organic grocery store and is looking forward to trying it out with her family.

If anyone reading this has suggestions for other organic popcorn that they’ve liked (or some that were just awful), please let Recycla and Enviro Girl know.

There is one other type of popcorn that needs to be discussed and that is bags of pre-popped popcorn. Recycla would normally dismiss this snack option as expensive and not environmentally friendly, as she can just as easily pop popcorn herself. However, Recycla’s two daughters pack their lunches for school every single day and a small bag of popcorn is a tasty accompaniment to their “PB&LGOH” (peanut butter and locally grown organic honey — on wheat bread, natch). And popcorn is definitely healthier than potato chips or Doritos. Recycla usually buys Half Naked Popcorn (With a Hint of Olive Oil) at Whole Foods. It’s light and yummy, with a hint of salt and a low fat content. If WF is out of HNP, Recycla will instead buy the WF store brand popcorn.

That’s the popcorn roundup for today. Tune in every day this week for more information on eco topics, including product reviews and a look at Etsy.

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