For many years some canola lines have contained gene sequences derived from the California bay laurel tree with other regulatory sequences from other organisms. The result of the genetic change is that these canola lines accumulate laurate in the seeds. Laurate is a major component in laundry detergent and shampoo. Link to source

Woops! I wonder what other mistakes were made?

Click here for an article on a suit by Monsanto against a Canadian farmer for growing "roundup ready" canola.

So much for the last "real" food in theatres.

AFAIK, popcorn wasn't affected by the "starlink" scare of other corn products.

Actually, I looked this up a while back. "Canola" is a made up name. Canola oil is really called rapeseed oil. You get it by squeezing the seeds extracted from the "Rape" plant. (Brassica napus) It has long been used as a source of lubricating oil, lamp oil (to produce light) and as a source of animal fodder. It has only recently been popularized as a source of cooking oil because of it's low cholesterol content.

I guess the guys who first marketed rapeseed oil figured nobody would buy it with a name like that and changed the name. (Can you really blame them? )

As many of us all know, there are two main problems with canola oil. It tastes like Ka-Ka and it burns really easily. If you don't teach your concession kids to turn the kettle heater off just as the last batch of corn finishes popping you are likely to burn the kettle and stench up your lobby. We all know what that's like, don't we?

The genetic issue aside, I really wish theatres would go back to using coconut oil. It tastes WAY better and it's harder to burn. Who was it that got the bright idea that eating snacks in the movie theatre should be HEALTHY?

(This concludes your Fun Fact of the day...)

Anyhoo, this has been overlooked as well. Cleaning is so much easier when using coconut oil. Everything stays nice and shiny with no buildup. We have to use corn oil and that stuff is the pits. It gums up the works and it burns black onto the kettles. That's my 2 cents...

Secondly customers like it much more, and my popcorn sales have increased quite a bit. There was a little aprehension at first since all the other theatres use the colored canola oil so they thought there was something wrong because it was white, but once they tasted it they were hooked. The other funny thing is that people for some reason think it is healthier because it is white instead of yellow.

We also offer some seasonings with the popcorn: traditional popcorn salt, garlic salt, taco seasoning, tobasco sauce (actually this isn't that bad on popcorn), ranch powder (we just use hidden valley ranch powder packs), parmesan cheese, and the king of all seasonings Brewers Yeast (sold in some places under the name "Nutritional Yeast").

I'm to the point right now that I can't eat the artificial yellow popcorn, it just looks and tastes disgusting in comparison.

We ran out of colored canola oil once and I went to the supermarket and bought all of their clear canola oil. We used that for a week while we waited for our shipment. The corn turned out white and some people complimented us on it.

Since people will believe anything they see on TV, some patrons were, of course, aghast. Then we refered them to an article clipped from Box Office Magazine about canola versus coconut. The health benefits of canola were unmeasurable in the comparison.

If they still balked, we told them about oil smoke temperatures, popcorn-making, and taste. BTW, eloquently put when you say that canola-cooked popcorn tastes like "ka-ka"--without all the fancy toppings some of you guys are describing, which mask the basic styrofoam-tasting nature of canola-cooked popcorn.

If they still fought us, we pointed to the manager. Our manager was a bit--how to put this delicately?--hefty. We pointed to him and said, "He just lost 40 pounds and eats at least a bag of our popcorn every day."

We only ever had one person who still refused our popcorn after that.

We also made sure that we popped a batch or two before each show in order to get that smell into the lobby and often got comments on how good the theatre smelled.

Is rapeseed oil any cheaper than coconut?
(Okay, I like calling it that. Maybe people would like coconut oil more if they know what the real name was. )

I imagine the reason theatres are still using it, even after the "scare" has worn off, is because of the cost. As we all know, movie companies will do anything to save a buck even if it sucks!

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As for the the oil dispensers, I'm personally not sure. Our theatre had never been converted from the 50lb drums of oil to the BIB so there was no problem with us. We just have the heated type pump which we turn on 20 minutes before popping and a hair dryer just incase the line up to the popper is frozen in the morning. Once you get the oil going and start popping you don't have any problems with freezing until the next day. I've also found that the only time it freezes are the first day or two after you've started a new can. The biggest thing you can do to help yourself out is to store your cans of oil in the hottest room of the theatre so you don't have to mess around with the heat wand to melt the oil when you want to switch cans.

As for BIB, is it even possible to use them with coconut oil due to freezing?

Ian -- We still use "Buttered Topping", and that is the one thing that my corporate office won't let me change about the popcorn.