While Most Popcorn Is Gluten-Free, Here Is Where It Gets Tricky

Is popcorn gluten-free? Considering that popcorn is just grains of corn that burst into a light and fluffy snack when heat is applied, the answer is, generally speaking, yes: It is gluten-free. However, it can get complicated once you dig a little deeper.

If we're talking about plain popcorn (so, with no toppings), the biggest issue for those who need to eat gluten-free is cross-contamination. This means that the popcorn is processed on factory equipment that also processes other products that contain gluten (for example, wheat, barley, and rye). In such cases, residual amounts of those glutenous grains may accidentally find their way into your popcorn. However, you can probably eat safely as long as you look for a "gluten-free" label on the packaging, verifying that the popcorn is safe from cross-contamination.

The degree to which cross-contamination is an issue can vary based on your medical problems. Someone with Celiac disease may well face a bad reaction even from a minuscule amount of gluten, whereas someone with gluten intolerance (which is milder) may be able to handle tiny amounts that could be present through cross-contamination. Of course, you should seek professional medical advice before making any decisions about consuming food where gluten cross-contamination is a possibility.

While plain popcorn should generally be gluten-free, most of us would probably prefer to eat popcorn with some kind of topping to add flavor. This is where things get more complicated. For example, the classic popcorn topping of butter and salt should — on paper — be gluten-free, as butter and salt are both gluten-free. However, the popcorn you get at movie theaters is often made with a butter-flavored topping that contains a longer list of ingredients (and sometimes, it is surprisingly vegan, with no butter at all). Some of these are gluten-free, but some are not: You'd have to ask for a precise ingredient list at the theater to be sure.

Naturally, other popcorn toppings or flavorings can also have gluten in them. A few common additives are soy sauce, brewer's yeast, malt flavoring, and wheat starch: Check the ingredient list for these or other ingredients with gluten. But again, you can seek out products that have a "gluten-free" label on them. Food producers cannot mislead consumers with this kind of label: FDA guidelines state that anything marked as "gluten-free" (or similar) must have no more than 20 parts of gluten per million — anything lower than this cannot be detected using valid scientific methods.