Late one June evening, while watching a thrilling episode of House Hunters International (an older couple was looking at condos in Nicaragua in case you were wondering), I needed a “small smackaral” to quote a famous bear. I had originally told myself that I was going to wait until I got into my “fitness” mentality before I  as usual, I caved and started digging through the many packages that I had stacked in a corner of the kitchen. (If I already had a strong sense of self-discipline, I wouldn’t need the slimdown challenge this summer!) I decided to go for the “Natural aged white cheddar” Halfpops popcorn.
Perhaps Halfpops discourages late-night snacking by making the package really hard to open. I’m not proud to admit it, but it took me about 10 minutes of struggling to get into the package. After adding strength training to my workout routine, I looked into the package to see a lot of small kernels. I don’t know what I was expecting because the name says it all. The snack is really just half-popped popcorn kernels! They are a lot crunchier than regular popcorn, but this adds to their snack value. With normal popcorn, because it’s so light and fluffy, it seems so harmless. It’s so easy to eat a whole large bag of those butter covered sneaky devils.
What I appreciated was the natural ingredients. With a snack that was covered with powdered cheese, I was so surprised to turn over the package and see popcorn, cheddar cheese, and sea salt. So real! The appeal, however, with Halfpops is their crunch that’s true to their slogan “Less Fluff. More Flavor.” And with the “less fluff” you stay fuller for longer. I could only eat half the bag and I was sent for a long night of watching HGTV. I will definitely be keeping these around my room to replace those late night pop-tart runs to Studio ’34!
Disclaimer: Halfpops produces half-popped popcorn: all the flavor without most of the junk. Materials refered in the article were sent to Tori as a gift, all opinions are her own.