Forget eating an apple a day. Apparently eating the crunchy snack is enough to keep the doctor away as popcorn has more antioxidants than fruit and vegetables.

Researchers at the University of Scranton discovered that the hull of popcorn has great amounts of antioxidants and has good nutritional qualities as long as it's not slathered in butter, oil and salt. The researchers found that popcorn hull is rich in polyphenols, antioxidants that prevent damage to cells and may also help fight diseases.

"The hull is where the most nutritional goodies are - not the white fluffy part," said chemistry professor Joe Vinson, senior author of the study. The popcorn findings were presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego.

"Popcorn may be the perfect snack food. It's the only snack that is 100 percent unprocessed whole grain. All other grains are processed and diluted with other ingredients, and although cereals are called "whole grain," this simply means that over 51 percent of the weight of the product is whole grain. One serving of popcorn will provide more than 70 percent of the daily intake of whole grain. The average person only gets about half a serving of whole grains a day, and popcorn could fill that gap in a very pleasant way."

Vinson explains that polyphenols are more concentrated in hulls because popcorn is made up of four percent water and is 100 percent whole grain. Polyphenols are diluted in other foods like fruits and vegetables which are made up of more water.

One serving of popcorn has about 300mg of polyphenols which is nearly double the polyphenols found in fruits per serving. However just because popcorn is healthy doesn't mean that you can replace fruits and vegetables with popcorn as popcorn lacks the vitamins and minerals found in fruits and veggies.

"I don't want people to think they can just eat popcorn to get all the polyphenols they need. I don't want them to think of popcorn as an alternative to fruits and vegetables," said Vinson.

Cooking popcorn in a potful of oil, pouring butter and salt on it and eating it as kettle corn will turn popcorn into a nutritional nightmare.

"Air-popped popcorn has the lowest number of calories, of course," Vinson said. "Microwave popcorn has twice as many calories as air-popped, and if you pop your own with oil, this has twice as many calories as air-popped popcorn. About 43 percent of microwave popcorn is fat, compared to 28 percent if you pop the corn in oil yourself."