The Truth Behind Potato Chips and Popcorn

It’s after school. You want a snack. You put a few potato chips on your plate. Where do these treats come from? They start with a simple potato.

Potatoes come from potato plants. They are a kind of plant called a tuber. Tubers are like thick plant stems that grow under the ground.

You can see the potato leaves above the soil but not the potatoes. When it’s time to harvest the potatoes, people or machines dig them up.

Trucks transport potatoes to factories. People put the potatoes into machines. The machines wash them, peel them, and slice them into chips.

Then the chips are fried in hot oil or baked in ovens. That makes them crispy.

Potato chips usually come in savory flavors. That means salty or spicy. You can get barbecue, sour cream, and cheesy chips. Which kind is your favorite?

You’re at the movies. You and your friends share a tub of popcorn. Where does this snack come from? You can tell from its name. It comes from corn!

Corn grows on corn plants. Cornstalks grow straight and tall. People use machines to harvest the corn. The machines separate the ears of corn from the rest of the plant. The little pieces are kernels.

Now the corn gets dried. You can’t make popcorn with moist, or damp, kernels.

Next the kernels get rubbed off so they are loose. In factories, machines do this. People can also do it at home.

Then it is time to make the popcorn! The kernels get heated up. The heat causes the kernels to burst into fluffy popcorn!

A lot of popcorn is savory. It’s buttery and salty. But you can also get sweet popcorn, like caramel corn. Yum!