Twilight for the Twinkie

[Guest guest]

" WC Douglass " <realheath

 

Subject:Twilight for the Twinkie

Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:11:24 -0400

 

Daily Dose

 

Tuesday October 19, 2004

 

 

RIP for an " American classic " killer

 

I wish I could say I'm going to shed a tear for the demise of the

hostess Twinkie, but alas, I cannot muster one. Nor can I turn on

the waterworks for Wonder Bread and those modern junk-food

classics, the Ho-Ho and the Ding Dong. For all of these are

products of Interstate Bakery, the nation's largest wholesale bakery

— a company that's not much longer for this world, if all that's

just in the cosmos has anything to say about it.

 

A few weeks ago, this leviathan of the junk-food industry filed for

Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to USA Today. Some

blame the Atkins diet and the current trend in low-carbohydrate

eating for the move, but some analyst sources quoted in the piece

cite a failure to innovate since their 1950s heyday that has spelled

doom for the company. But how much more can you really

innovate refined flour and sugar?

 

Whatever the reason this giant has been felled, I say: Good

riddance.

 

And in case anyone thinks I'm being a little too hard on the old

Twinkie and friends, let me offer this reminder as a sort of eulogy.

It's the list of just a few of the 28 ingredients in these little

death-

bombs, complete with a translation of what they really are. Ready?

Here goes:

 

Enriched wheat flour (flour that's been bleached, starched and de-

nutritionized)

Sugar (self-explanatory)

Corn syrup (more sugar)

High-fructose corn syrup (more sugar yet)

Partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed, or canola oil (trans-

fats)

Dextrose (even more sugar)

Modified cornstarch (glucose polymers — more simple sugars)

Cornstarch (Yay! More sugar!)

Corn flour (refined to worthlessness, of course)

Corn syrup solids (you guessed it — another type of sugar)

Dextrin (a starch/sugar hybrid)

 

Wow, that's 8 different kinds of sugar, three kinds of starch, and a

dollop of killer trans-fats. Yum! The other 17 ingredients are

largely preservatives and colorings. I could only find four

ingredients on the whole list that were at least somewhat good for

you: Eggs, whey, salt and water.

 

No doubt, the ingredient list for Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs reads

similarly, and I KNOW there isn't a single redeeming ingredient in

Wonder Bread. That stuff's been making us into a nation of pasty-

faced diabetics for years.

 

So shed no tears for the Twinkie and its brethren — they're good

only for killing us. Their maker's bankruptcy is a healthy victory

for all Americans.

 

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Snack-cake breakfast ends in violence

 

When 9 year-old Kevin Logan opened up his Little Debbie Zebra

snack cake on the school bus one morning, he surely had no idea

that the mere sight of the confection would send the child next to

him into a violent rage…

 

Yet that's exactly what happened when Kevin wouldn't share his

sugary breakfast (Little Debbie for breakfast — great parenting,

huh?) with the boy sitting beside him. Before Kevin knew what

was happening, his aggressor had smacked him upside the head

with a stuffed Tweety Bird doll. When Kevin defended, he was

slammed into the bus window, dragged to the aisle and stomped.

 

By the time the bus driver pulled his attacker off of him, poor

Kevin was unconscious. No one knows what became of the Zebra

Cake, but I'm sure it must have ended up in the bully's belly. It

just goes to show how powerful and addictive sugar can be —

people will resort to violence to get it. Of course, this did happen

in North Carolina, one of the fattest states in the Union (or should I

say former Confederacy)…

 

After his release from the local hospital, Kevin's mom no doubt

treated him to a lunch of Ding Dongs and Ho-Hos down at the

corner 7 Eleven. I wonder: What will Kevin end up like as an

adult? I'm sure he'll blame his glands for his 58-inch waist and

amputated legs from diabetes. Either that, or he'll sue Little

Debbie.

 

His mother's the one he should sue, though. Eating habits are

learned, not instinctual.

 

 

Never sugarcoating things ('cause I'm sweet enough already),

 

William Campbell Douglass II, MD

 

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