Popcorn as a Survival Food and a Health Warning.

I have not tried popping corn using the above method in the video, but I thought it was a unique way of popping corn so I added it here to my blog. Let me know if you tried it.

And be careful trying it, please!

Popcorn makes a great survival food, especially when you want to stretch your food rations in your stockpile. You can add popcorn to your food to increase the volume of the food you eat that will fill you up more. Or, you can just eat the popcorn with any servings of your food.

Carrying some unpopped popcorn with you when camping, backpacking, etc, is a good wilderness survival idea. Again, you can add it to your meal as a side dish to fill you up and stretch your food supply.

All you need to make your popcorn is the unpopped corn kernels, cooking oil, salt, and a pan with a lid. You also need a heat source, like a campfire or a burner. I personally use corn oil in place of butter to drizzle on it after it is popped, along with some salt.

If you want to eat the popcorn as a dessert, you can then add some maple syrup or sugar to it, too.

Unpopped popcorn can be stored for decades under the right conditions.

Grinding popcorn into cornmeal and eating cornmeal this way can cause the disease Pellagra

Popped popcorn is nutritious. It is high in niacin and fiber, and low in calories.

However, the nutrients and, specifically, niacin are inaccessible to our bodies. In order for our bodies to absorb the nutrients and niacin, corn must be either cooked with an alkali to form nixtamal, or popped. If our main source of nutrition was ground popcorn made into cornmeal and cooked, we could get Pellagra, which is a niacin deficiency.

Cornmeal is good as a survival food in your stockpile, but not popcorn cornmeal.

Niacin is Vitamin B3, and some of the foods it can be found in are

Asparagus

Avocado

Broccoli

Coffee

Kidney beans

Meat, chicken, and tuna

Mushrooms

Peanuts

Peas

Sunflower Seeds