I've always had a fear of eating popcorn. The idea of breaking my tooth on a popcorn kernel is terrifying, the thought of getting a kernel shard lodged between my teeth or gums makes me squeamish, and I cringe at the possibility of chomping on a burnt piece. I suspect this all stems from some badly-made Jiffy Pop that my mom would serve up as a kid. It's not a debilitating fear or anything, I just avoid eating popcorn.
I don't really talk about my popcorn-phobia, so I can't really blame my brother-in-law for getting me a subscription to a "popcorn of the month" club for Christmas. But that said, I'll be soon stuck with bags and bags of popcorn. I could offload these to my co-workers, but instead I've decided to overcome my fear of popcorn as one of my New Year's resolutions.
It's been a solid few decades since I've tried popcorn, so I'm taking some baby steps and any tips would be appreciated. Specifically, my questions are:
How do you avoid breaking your teeth? Does shaking the bag force loose kernels to the bottom? Is there a type of popcorn that doesn't "shard" as bad?