Microwaves are easy to use. Just put the food inside the microwave cavity or turntable, close the door, set the time, wait, and take the food out. However, when reheating food, many people end up making mistakes or doing questionable things like defrosting food with plastic wrap on it.
You can easily cook foods like popcorn with the microwave. Just follow the instructions on the bag or push the popcorn/pizza preset button. However, can dogs eat microwave popcorn? Keep reading to know the truth.
Can Dogs Eat Microwave Popcorn?
It depends. You can feed dogs small quantities of plain, air-popped popcorn with no problem. As for popcorn with toppings or buttered popcorn, you shouldn’t feed them to your dogs on a regular basis. It won’t hurt them to eat dropped pieces of the cheese or barbecue popcorn you’re eating.
Like any other treatment or junk food, too much popcorn isn’t good for your dog’s health. You should learn to keep such treats from ending up in the mouth of your dog too often. Or perhaps the same could be said of you and your mouth for good measure. Popcorn contains too much carbs and calories.
You should keep treats like kibble and popcorn down to about 10 percent or less of the daily caloric intake of your beloved canine.
My Dog Just Sucked Down My Leftover Popcorn on the Floor! Is This Bad?
Dogs love helping clean up your mess after a movie night at your home theater or backyard screening. This is because they’ll be treated to loads of popcorn bits on the floor and between couch cushions. Many a mutt or purebred happily chomp up these bits.
However, should your dog eat those popped corn kernels or not? Like with any junk food, a few bits here and there from time to time are harmless but don’t make it a regular thing.
Popcorn in and of itself won’t harm your dog. Popped kernels of corn contain many minerals that can contribute to canine nutrition such as zinc, phosphorous, manganese, and magnesium. Popcorn also contains trace amounts of vitamins.
See more: 11 Best Microwave Cooking Cookbooks
When is Popcorn Bad for Your Dogs?
What gives your popcorn taste can be harmful to your dogs. Salty popcorn can affect your canine negatively in terms of kidney function, especially if you have the pooch eat whole bags of popcorn everyday.
Butter and salt is the preferred flavor for most popcorn bags, even though we humans know they’re not good for us. All that grease and salt will cause organ damage down the line. The same thing can happen to the dog, only faster because the dog is smaller than a human.
Salt, oils, and butter as well as flavors such as caramel or chocolate can lead to dogs having intestinal issues. Chocolate in particular can poison the dog or make their heart rate go up at dangerous levels. The fats in butter and oil can make your dog obese as well.
When is Popcorn Good for Your Dogs?
Popcorn has trace vitamins and minerals inside it. Giving your dogs occasional popcorn treats is fine. Furthermore, plain, air-popped unflavored popcorn can constitute as a nice occasional doggy treat. However, kernels can get stuck in your dog’s teeth.
Be careful about having kernels stuck in the teeth of your dog. You should know from personal experience how annoying that could be. Furthermore, unpopped or partially popped kernels can also get stuck in the throat of your dog as well.
This could end up being a choking hazard altogether. Therefore, the best popcorn for your dog is the occasional handful of popped kernels or abstaining from feeding him popcorn altogether.
How Do You Microwave Popcorn?
You can avail of flavorless popcorn for air popping from brands like Orville Redenbacher. Afterwards, press the popcorn/pizza reheating button on your microwave to pop the kernels in a much quicker manner than ordinary boiling.
Otherwise, use the manual controls and follow the recommendations on the popcorn bag. Avoid getting popcorn with its own butter, barbecue, or cheese flavoring. You don’t want your dog to end up eating such flattening flavors.
If you’re eating caramel or chocolate popcorn snacks, you don’t need to microwave them since they’re already popped. It’s a bad idea for your dog to eat either, especially the chocolate flavor popcorn (chocolate is poisonous to dogs).
How Do You Not Microwave Popcorn?
Don’t microwave popcorn on an aluminum tray or kettle like you would when popping popcorn in the oven. If you use the wrong setting when popping your kernels, you could end up burning the kernels and the popcorn with excessive heat and steam.
The microwave should be used in accordance to its abilities or wattage. Otherwise, you’ll end up courting disaster. Popcorn bags that you can pop in 2 minutes and 30 seconds are available all over your grocery.
However, make sure to get flavorless popcorn in case you plan to have your dogs to munch on the snack. Otherwise, there are loads of flavors to choose from.
Should You Use Your Microwave like a Dryer?
Microwaves are so good at microwaving anything with a water content that some people think that nuking their damp socks or gloves is a great life hack. However, you really shouldn’t do this. Any non-food item put inside the microwave can end up being a fire hazard.
A dryer is specifically designed for drying clothes safely. A microwave isn’t something you should use to quickly dry out your sopping-wet clothing articles the same way you should only follow settings or directions when microwaving kernels to make popcorn.
You wouldn’t put your socks or gloves inside the oven or your cold turkey in the washing machine dryer, right? Therefore, you shouldn’t put your clothes inside your microwave as though it’s a digital push-button method of clothes drying.
Where to Go From Here
Popcorn isn’t deadly against dogs like dark chocolate is. However, if you’re accidentally feeding them caramel or chocolate popcorn then that’s a whole other matter altogether. Ditto when it comes to cheese or barbecue flavor popcorn.
Popcorn that’s too salty can also do a number on your dog’s kidneys or liver, especially if you regularly feed the pup bags of popcorn daily. A handful of kernels is fine but like junk food, limit flavored popcorn ingestion from time to time.
References:
- Anna Burke, “Can Dogs Eat Popcorn?“, American Kennel Club (AKC.org), July 15, 2016
- Erica Chayes Wida, “8 mistakes people make when using a microwave“, Today.com, March 21,
