Gold Medal's Flavacol is one of the most popular brands of butter-flavored popcorn seasoning salt in the world. Whether added to a popcorn machine's heated kettle along with unpopped kernels or used as a topping on popped corn, Flavacol provides the salty, buttery flavor traditionally associated with movie-style popcorn.
Ingredients
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Original Flavacol contains only four ingredients: salt, artificial flavor, and FD&C yellows #5 and #6 to provide popcorn with a buttery yellow color. As salt is the primary ingredient in Flavacol, Gold Medal Products attributes its unique flavor to the process used to produce their salt.
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The Alberger Process
A trademark of Cargill salts, the Alberger process is used to produce the very fine salt flakes used in Flavacol. Unlike traditional cube-shaped salt crystals, those produced with the Alberger process have greater surface area due to their pyramid shape. This allows for a greater density of salt flakes in a serving, estimated by Gold Medal Products at 130 million per pound. Owing to their greater surface area and number of flakes per serving, the salt used in Flavacol blends with popcorn and adheres to the artificial flavoring better than traditional cube-shaped salts.
Nutritional Information
Primarily containing Alberger-brand salt, Flavacol does not contribute significantly to your daily nutritional intake. With zero calories, zero grams of fat, zero grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of protein and no vitamin or mineral content, the only significant impact that Flavacol may have on your diet is due to its very high sodium content. Based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet, one teaspoon of Flavacol contains 116 percent, or 2,780mg, of your recommended daily intake of sodium.
Health Concerns
Although it is unlikely that you will consume a full teaspoon, or 7g, of Flavacol in one serving of popcorn, its high sodium content may be a concern if you are monitoring your sodium intake. In addition, both FD&C yellows #5 and #6 have been linked to hyperactivity in children. As such, it may be of interest to request unflavored, unsalted popcorn for your child.