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Review of the Presto Poplite 04820 Hot Air Popcorn Popper

Air Bags, Popcorn, Poppers

My family loves salty snacks, like potato chips, pretzels, and popcorn. We’ve been trying to make healthier choices and began buying more popcorn, light microwave popcorn. Microwave popcorn is very convenient. Toss the bag in the microwave, and two minutes or so later, you have a nice bag of tasty hot popcorn. The problem for me was that it was getting very expensive. Individual bags can easily cost over 1 dollar each. That adds up fast with even a small family. I also started worrying about what kind of oils and chemicals might be used with microwave popcorn. Therefore, I decided to buy an air popper. My family had one when I was a kid, and I remember it made really good popcorn.

I first went to Target looking an air popper, but I was very disappointed with their selection, so next I tried Wal-Mart. They had one called the Presto Poplite 04820. It was just under $20, so I decided to give it a try. I also bought Orville Redenbacher’s Original Gourmet Popping Corn.

When I got home, I opened the box, and setup was a breeze. There are just three parts, the machine part, a removable cover (shaped like a chute that directs the popped corn into the bowl), and a measuring scoop/butter melter that sits on top. All you have to do is measure the kernels with the scoop, pour them into the popper, put the lid with the scoop in place, and plug the popper in. There is no on/off switch, just a cord to plug in and out. In approximately 2 minutes, I got a great big bowl of fluffy hot popcorn that tasted great. There were hardly any unpopped kernels. I was really impressed. I opted not to use the scoop on top as a butter melter because it just did not seem that it would get hot enough to melt the butter in the short time it takes to pop the corn. I used the microwave to melt a few tablespoons of butter, poured it on the popcorn, added a little salt, and tossed it all together. It tasted just like the popcorn my mom made when I was a kid. Everyone in my family really liked it.

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The 45-ounce container of Orville Redenbacher’s Original popcorn cost around 4 dollars at Wal-Mart. This yields 32 six-cup bowls of popcorn. That’s 32 very large bowls. At the usual price of grocery store microwave popcorn, that would cost over 32 dollars. If your family eats a lot of popcorn, you could save a lot of money with this air popper. Plus, since it is air popped, it is much healthier and has fewer calories–that is, of course, if you skip the butter, or at least go really easy on the butter. Did you know that one cup of plain popped popcorn has only 15 calories? It also is high in fiber, about 1 gram per cup. This information was taken off the nutrition label on Orville Redenbacher’s Original popcorn. You can also buy lots of different types of popcorn seasoning to spice things up!

I recommend the Presto Poplite 04820 hot air corn popper. It is inexpensive, easy to use, does not take up too much space, and makes a nice healthy and tasty snack for your family.