Are Hot Air Popcorn Poppers as Good as They Say?

The answer to the question in the title is simple and straightforward. Yes, air popcorn poppers are great devices with several advantages for making popcorn at home. That said, there is more to these products than sheer benefits and you need to know the few disadvantages before you get one.

The first thing you should know before buying an air popcorn maker is that you cannot use oil when making popcorn in such a machine. These appliances heat raw corn kernels with nothing but hot air and adding oil while they are working on popcorn would actually damage them. This is obviously great news if you are concerned with your weight and would like to cut your calories without giving up popcorn but it is not so great for those who eat popcorn simply for the flavor. Air popped popcorn does not have the rich taste of oil popcorn and some find it bland even after adding some oil. That is why you need to make sure non-oil popcorn will cater to your taste before you get an air popcorn popper. The next drawback of hot air popcorn poppers is the difficulty of finding a good one. The market is absolutely saturated with cheap products of this kind that will burn themselves and corn after a few uses. Others will bombard you with corn kernels that pop where they hit the floor and it will be your vacuum cleaner that gets the snack instead of you. The fact that popcorn poppers are very cheap appliances allows people to pick one in a hurry and without taking a look at any popcorn popper reviews, which lets the low-quality products stay in the market. So, if you decide to get an air popcorn maker, you need to be prepared to do some search to find one that works.

Finally, there is the BPA issue that confuses many consumers about the safety of eating popcorn made in a hot air popper. The outer surface of these units are plastic and some models contain a chemical named BPA that may have cancerogenic effects. It is hard to tell whether this is a genuine concern, especially when you consider that corn rarely if at all comes into contact with plastic. Inside of the popcorn poppers are never made of plastic because it would most certainly melt in seconds. Moreover, some manufacturers strictly keep their plastic BPA-free so you do not have to give up on hot air popcorn poppers even if you are serious about the BPA concern.