Twinkie Chemicals Deconstructed

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Have you ever wondered why store bought foods frequently contain non-food sounding chemicals? Well wonder no longer! Taking aim at the infamous Hostess Twinkie (shelf life 100 years as the rumor goes) Hudson Street Press has released a new book Twinkie, Decontructed by Steve Ettlinger (304 pages, you can pre-order from Amazon.com [2] for $16.29). Newsweek's Health section has a neat interview with Ettlinger about his new book. Here are some snippets from the article (which you can read online [3]).

At the heart of the book is the fundamental question: why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food? The answer: To stay fresh on a grocery-store shelf, Twinkies can't contain anything that might spoil, like milk, cream or butter. Once you remove such real ingredients, something has to take their place—and cellulose gum, lecithin and sodium stearoyl lactylate are a good start. Add the fact that industrial quantities of batter have to pump easily through automated tubes into cake molds, and you begin to get the idea.

Even so, it can be unsettling to learn just how closely the basic ingredients in processed foods resemble industrial materials. Corn dextrin, a common thickener, is also the glue on postage stamps and envelopes. Ferrous sulfate, the iron supplement in enriched flour and vitamin pills, is used as a disinfectant and weedkiller. Is this cause for concern? Ettlinger says no, though you wouldn't want a diet that consists solely of Twinkies. Ultimately, all food, natural and otherwise, is composed of chemical compounds—and normal ingredients like salt have industrial applications, too. Still, it gives you pause when he describes calcium sulfate, a dough conditioner, as "food-grade plaster of Paris."

Quite interesting stuff. I am tempted to pick this book up!