Choose Your Oil : Fat’s bad for you, salt’s bad for you and the tubs are environmentally incorrect. Still, we wondered: Is any popcorn worth it?

OK, so popcorn can kill you. This is not much of an alarm in a city where, the Surgeon General has determined, simply breathing or driving in certain neighborhoods is hazardous to your health.

Movie theaters reacted fairly swiftly to the news from the Center for Science in the Public Interest that, thanks to the use of coconut oil, a tub of movie popcorn has more calories and fat than a tub of Big Macs. Ads and banners quickly appeared, with most theater chains proudly proclaiming that they have a tradition of using relatively safer canola oil that spans, oh, at least a couple of weeks now; that they’d never dream of doing something that would harm the welfare of their valued patrons; that they’ve never had a contingency plan of creating wider seats for their popcorn-glomming customers.

Now that the spin control has been executed, the question is, does this stuff really taste good enough to justify the early grave to which we moviegoers have been duly consigned? To find out, we conducted an experiment so precise and definitive that the Center for Science in the Public Interest would be green with envy.

Methods and procedures

Eight upstanding citizens with no outstanding police warrants and nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon gathered at an unmarked Hollywood apartment complex. With the crack precision of a military operation, we descended upon theaters representing eight theater chains, purchasing both buttered and unbuttered popcorn and returned to said location, where we proceeded to eat ourselves sick. As a control for the experiment, we had a bag of Chesters Butter Pop, which one of the group sneaks into every movie he attends.

Total amount spent: $56. For popcorn . As one lab rat--er, participant--opined, “Think of all the Chinese food that you could’ve bought for that. Why can’t you do stories like that? “

Results and observations

Though most chains have switched to canola oil (Cineplex Odeon being the lone standout), their popping methods actually do result in varying flavors.

We were fortunate to have in our midst Joseph, who, having served as a local theater manager, is as knowledgeable about movie popcorn as he is about movies themselves. Among his insights: Snacks at Hollywood theaters are the most expensive around (the Valley is the cheapest); some theaters don’t pop their popcorn, preferring to have it imported in giant plastic bags instead; and--most distressingly--the theater he worked at has been known to have had a vermin problem. More you do not want to know.

Following are our thoughts on the chains’ popcorn, beginning with the theater with the popcorn the group enjoyed the most and declining to the product that we ate only out of a sense of duty to you, the reader. (Note: Alonso was the only person to use the food-critic term “texture” in describing the popcorn. We elected not to ostracize him, however.)

* Pacific (El Capitan). All save one of us found the El Capitan’s popcorn to be the downright tastiest, even though they have switched over to the ostensibly safer canola oil. It was also the most intrinsically salty, as well. Which didn’t bother anyone in our sure-to-perish-of-high-blood-pressure aggregation.

* General Cinema (Galaxy). Kevin, who purchased this, said GCC’s popcorn was the freshest, hottest and most flavorful corn right off the counter, and declared it his favorite. The rest of us were content to name it our second favorite: The salt produced a slightly metallic tang to its taste.

* Landmark/Goldwyn (Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion). All agreed that this was the crispiest, and could scarcely tell the difference between the buttered and unbuttered corn. Sadly, no one had a joke for this corn.

* Cineplex Odeon (Showcase). How about a little popcorn with your grease? This weighed twice as much as other similarly sized bags, thanks to the liberal slathering of golden glop--Cineplex is the only chain still pushing the dreaded coconut oil. “It’s slipping around in my mouth--I can’t get my teeth on it,” groused Robert. Alonso described its “aggressively faux-buttery greasiness” and added, “I saw ‘The Piano’ there and some guy had a seizure--I thought it was just the finger-cutting scene.” It was anecdotes like that that made us decide not to ostracize Alonso. That, and the fact that it was his apartment.

* United Artists (Marina del Rey Cinema). Maybe their popcorn is good when it’s not burnt to a crisp. We’ll never know--ours was inedibly charred. Flavored topping didn’t help.

* Mann (Chinese). Of the theaters we sampled, Mann’s Chinese was the only one to offer air-popped corn, which all of us agreed was just like eating warm styrofoam. On the other hand, Cindy sagely observed, “It’s responsible of them. I’m glad they offer it, so someone on a diet can have something to eat.” We were underwhelmed by their regular corn, though, which led Alonso to theorize, “This must be why Mann theaters always have the most popcorn on the floor.”

* AMC (Cecchi Gori Fine Arts). You’d expect a Saturday afternoon to be a brisk time for popcorn business, and that it would be fairly fresh, right? AMC’s was the stalest of the corns we sampled, and was also pretty greasy. Which didn’t surprise Joseph: “Whenever I go to an AMC theater and they give me a Moviegoer Popcorn Coupon, I always give it away. I always think, ‘Oh, man, I hope it’s not a popcorn coupon, I hope it’s for a drink.’ ”

* Laemmle (Sunset 5). Resident connoisseur Joseph, before any results were in, declared this his least favorite when it comes to popcorn, and the taste test proved him correct. It wasn’t fresh, and there was some sort of chalky substance on it that wasn’t particularly pleasant. How ironic that the chain that shows the most tasteful movies offers the most tasteless popcorn.

* Chesters Butter Pop (Ralph’s). “Vomit,” Cindy said while reading the nutritional information on the bag. “It has 160 calories (per serving)--110 of those are from fat!” Otherwise, the snack’s “bizarre chemical taste” was assailed. “I like the bizarre chemical taste,” shrugged Chesters’ sole apologist. In his defense, it certainly is cheaper (99 a bag) than theater corn.

Our work done, we tackled important attendant side issues.

Side Issue No. 1: Extra butter ?

Aesthetic issues aside, the butter or oil or WD-40 used by theaters unappetizingly shrivels up popped kernels like so many well-tanned Beverly Hills trophy wives--the extra glop is disgustingly greasy. Which would make holding hands at the movies a most unromantic proposition.

Besides, in our test, most of us liked the unbuttered corn better anyway, and after the respective tubs of corn had been sitting around for a while, the flavor of the buttered corn was indistinguishable from the non-buttered. Which led us to the conclusion that, apparently, the stuff they pour on the popcorn is the same stuff they pop it in. Which means you’re just getting more goop in your system, the popcorn equivalent of Jolt Cola. If you’re that contemptuous of your arteries, may we suggest the book “Final Exit.”

Side Issue No. 2: Cups or bags?

Bags, we’re told, are environmentally friendly. We don’t care: Cups (or, for the more ambitious appetite, tubs) are easier to handle and don’t spill as easily. Only one participant in our experiment preferred bags, with the weak defense: “When you drop a bag, it doesn’t roll away.” Which the rest of us quickly turned into a plus on the cup side: That way, no one knows it was you who dropped it.

Sadly, of the theaters in our survey, only Laemmle and United Artists--two of our least favorite poppers of corn--offer cups.

Side Issue No. 3: What is it with Cineplex Odeon?

Boy, are these guys touchy. A routine call to the Showcase Theater to confirm that they still use coconut oil resulted in three employees passing the buck, followed by a very officious “We have no comment on that.” Phoning Cineplex Odeon’s local offices produced a little more runaround, concluded with a referral to the corporate offices--in Toronto.

And all this wasn’t even necessary, since Cineplex Odeon has gone to the extravagant length of issuing a pamphlet to theater patrons, “Let’s pop a few myths about Moviegoers’ most beloved snack.” It shreds the Center for Science’s study, then goes on to say, in essence, “Sure, it’s bad for you, but so what? You like it and if you don’t buy it from us, we’re going under.”

Conclusions

The Times had best let me expense six months at Jenny Craig.