Hot Air Popper

A great electric hot air popcorn popper that uses no oil and produces a very light and healthy treat.

You can find a pop corn machine just about anywhere and one of the most widely used in the home is the hot air popper. It's a very convenient way to make popcorn and there are many benefits to this method as well.

Popcorn kernals pop by heating the small amount of water that resides inside the kernal until it produces steam. When the steam becomes too great the outer hull of the kernal basically explodes and there you have your lovely white piece of popcorn. Now in the past, in order to generate enough heat to turn the water to steam you would have to roast the kernals over an open fire or heat vegetable oil in a pot and heat them that way. Both methods, although still widely used, turned out to be unrealiable and also produced unhealthy popcorn.

Then in the 1970's the first hot air popper was introduced to the market as more reliable and healthy way to make popcorn. The method behind this popper was to spin raw kernals in a main chamber and as the kernals worked their way to the outside of the chamber, hot air was introduced by an electrical heating element. It only took a few minutes to heat the small amounts of water in the kernals and soon enough you had popcorn flowing out of the plastic shoot of the hot air popper and into an awaiting bowl.  Some hot air poppers had some added features such as a compartment for melting butter and others had places to add special salts or seasonings. All around it proved to be a great method for making very light popcorn in a short amount of time and soon enough manufacturers were mass producing them for an eager public.

Now some still think that popcorn made in vegetable oil produces a better tasting version however most experts will tell you that the hot air popper is a superior method if you're looking for a healthy alternative. Also the hot air popper generally produces less unpopped kernals so it's also very efficient (unlike some microwave brands where many kernals are wasted or unpopped.) And the price is right as most of these units now run about $20-25 which makes movie night at home much less expensive. Give one a try and we're sure you'll love it!