Twinkies: Surprise Ingredients in the Antithesis of a Healthy Food

Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 7:12 am

In the United States, the Twinkie is commonly regarded as the quintessential junk food, with five hundred million sold annually. Though many smirk at the thought of Twinkies, proponents love the fluffy cream filling and moist golden processed cake.

This humble finger food weighs in at 43g but packs in 150 calories (45 from fat alone).However, the next time you pick up a Twinkie, consider this: there are an alarming number of chemicals and preservatives packed into it.Though they contain actual flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, water and a trace of egg, the rest of the 39 ingredients are a veritable who’s who of the food chemical world. Take a deep breath and study them:

Ingredients:

Enriched Wheat Flour – enriched with ferrous sulphate (iron)
B vitamins – Niacin, Thiamine mononitrate [B1, Riboflavin [B2] and Folic acid
Sugar
Corn syrup
Water
High fructose corn syrup
Vegetable and/or animal shortening containing one or more of: Partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed or Canola oil, lard and beef fat
Dextrose
Whole eggs

They also contain also contain 2% or less of:

Modified corn starch
Cellulose gum
Whey
Leavenings: Sodium acid pyrophosphate, Baking soda, Monocalcium phosphate
Salt
Cornstarch
Corn flourCorn syrup solids
Mono and diglycerides
Soy lecithin
Polysorbate 60
Dextrin
Diacetyl
Calcium caseinate
Sodium stearoyl lactylate
Wheat gluten
Calcium sulfate
Natural and artificial flavors: Caramel color, artificial vanillin, Sorbic acid, color (yellow 5, red 40)
Shortening

According to ABC News (June 12, 2007), here’s how some of the ingredients break down: “Polysorbate 60 is used for that smooth consistency, high fructose corn syrup adds a sugary sweet taste, sodium stearoyl lactylate contributes the soft spongy texture, mono and diglycerides prevent drying, red No. 40 and yellow No. 5 achieve that golden color, sorbic acid helps retain freshness and cellulose gum enhances the thickness and creaminess of the filling.”

Disturbing? Yes. But perhaps even more so is the fact that Twinkies contain other unexpected ingredients from an international nexus of suppliers. Out of the 39 often unpronounceable ingredients, many come from Chinese refineries and factories. More specifically, some of the B vitamins enriching the flour are also derived at least partly from petroleum, such as niacin or B3 (the ingredients are water, air and petroleum), and thiamine mononitrate or B1 (from coal tar).

New York City writer Steve Ettlinger, in his book, “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” says that flammable and carcinogenic benzene, plays a major role in the extremely complicated set of chemical reactions that yield the artificial flavouring vanillin. And the chlorine used to bleach the flour in Twinkies is extremely toxic.

“How can you have quality control when you don’t even know where the ingredient is coming from? During my Twinkie research I was particularly surprised that many American food additive manufacturers buy chemicals, especially vitamins, from distributors and do not know, or don’t ask, where they come from. The distributors usually sing the same song, as they often buy from importers, and the importers buy from exporters who — no surprise — are often not able or willing to identify all of their sources.” (LA Times, May 29, 2007)

Grocery store shelves are full of processed foods containing strange chemicals from around the world – everything from salad dressings to frozen dinners; ice cream to meal replacement drinks contain foreign additives.

“So you might chew on Malaysian or Indonesian palm oil products, European wheat gluten, Peruvian colorants, Chadian gums and Swiss niacin, made from Swiss water, Swiss air (nitrogen) and North Atlantic or Middle Eastern oil,” states his book.

A March 5, 2007 Newsweek article also agreed that many of the ingredients resemble industrial materials, though they state that ultimately, all food, natural and otherwise, is composed of chemical compounds. Still, it gives pause for thought when calcium sulfate, a dough conditioner, is described as “food-grade plaster of Paris.”

It seems there is a gross lack of oversight when it comes to our food safety, which is starting to manifest itself in many imports today. We trust our health agencies to this task, yet they simply cannot keep up to the many unidentified sources in the global food chemical world.

Personally, I think the basis of the equation is to buy your foods from local, community-supported agriculture programs. These might cost us somewhat more, but it also allows us to make informed choices about what ingredients go into our food and where they come from. If you want to have your snack cake and eat it too, you have to remember: You are what you eat.