The boyfriend bought me a book that made me hate an American icon...the Twinkie. Twinkie Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger delves into the ingredients list of this modern marvel. Because really, it's pretty impressive all of the junk they fit in such a small pastry.
Twinkies have an annual sale value of around $200 million, which translates into 'Americans love to eat processed chemicals with crème filling'. What makes a Twinkie different than a cake made by a human baker, is ingredients and shelf life. Many of the packaged snacks we see in the supermarket can last months snuggled next to each other in the aisles of our stores where as a cake will spoil long before this marker. But with the increased shelf life came ingredients more sinister and chemical in nature than ever before.
Ettlinger summarizes the snack best in his closing remarks.
“Eat enough of ‘em, and you’ll be able to suss out the bouquet of fresh, Delaware polysorbate 60, and good Georgian cellulose gum; a hit of prime Oklahoman calcium sulfate, or that fine, Midwestern soybean shortening, if not the finest high fructose corn syrup Nebraska has to offer (p 263).”
If you’ve ever read the ingredients list on something and just need to know how it actually become a food product, borrow Twinkie Deconstructed.
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