Thursday, May 13, 2010

Twinkie Deconstructed

This is what I learned upon completing Steve Ettlinger's Twinkie Deconstructed.

Everything we eat comes from rocks, corn and petroleum.

Okay, that's an oversimplification, but Ettlinger's journey through processed food kept coming back to those three things as the starting point of many ingredients. Yes, we're dependent on foreign oil for so much more than just fuel for our SUVs.

Ettlinger's book started with a question from his son. While perusing a Twinkie wrapper, he asked where polysorbate 60 comes from. Ettlinger eventually set out on a journey to trace the history of all the ingredients on the Twinkie label. He travelled through numerous factories and underground mines to locate the source of twinkie-ness.

This list, from his website, gives a breakdown of where it all comes from.


THE TWINKIE NEXUS of INGREDIENTS
The Twinkie-Industrial Complex of Twinkies’ Raw and Final Ingredients
As Described in
Twinkie, Deconstructed
ANIMAL:
chickens – whole eggs
cows - whey, caseinate, animal shortening
bacteria, yeast, fungi – vitamins B1 and B2, folic acid, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, sodium stearoyl lactylate, polysorbate 60, whey
VEGETABLE:  
corn – corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, modified cornstarch, corn dextrins, dextrose, glucose, corn flour, polysorbate 60, sodium stearoyl lactylate
soy – soybean oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, soy protein  isolate, soy lecithin, sodium stearoyl lactylate
canola – shortening, sodium stearoyl lactylate
cotton - partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, sodium stearoyl lactylate, cellulose gum
wheat – flour
palm trees - partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate
olive oil – mono and diglycerides, colors
sugar cane  - sugar
sugar beets – sugar
vanilla orchid – natural flavor
trees – cellulose gum
MINERAL:
crude oil or natural gas - artificial vanilla, artifical butter flavor, artificial colors, vitamins, sorbic acid, polysorbate 60, sodium bicarbonate, cellulose gum
limestone – monocalium  phosphate, calcium caseinate,  whey, SSL
phosphorus – monocalcium phosphate
trona - sodium bicarbonate, sodium stearoyl lactylate
salt - salt, bleach, colors (and as source of lye and HCl in all processing)
gypsum – calcium sulfate  
iron – ferrous sulfate
air – ammonia for nitric acid for niacin and colors
sulfur – ferrous sulfate
water – water
Mmm. Tasty.

I've been reading books by Michael Pollan and watching Food Inc and generally trying to be more aware of what I'm eating. This nook was another big step toward encouraging me to avoid prepackaged, processed foodstuffs. 

My favorite example, from early in the book, comes from the reveal of how iron gets into enriched flour. Of course, enriched flour is a good thing, with the added vitamins & minerals helping to eliminate the (now forgotten) disease pellagra. (Although if everyone ate a balanced diet and used whole wheat flour we wouldn't need enrichment, we'd be getting all the vitamins & minerals we need.) Now, when you make iron into steel, a big coating of rust covers the steel. So it's bathed in sulphuric acid, where the rust falls to the bottom, ultimately getting separated from the acid then ground into powder and sprinkled into flour. Voila! You've just enriched your flour with iron.

Yummy!

And so it goes, from oil refinery to chemical processing plant to your mouth.

Ettlinger's a good writer and, though the process becomes somewhat repetitive with yet another chemical plant extracting yet another oil-based ingredient, it's a great look at where we get all the packaged stuff that lines grocery store shelves - and is slowly killing us all.

Bon appetit! 

1 comment:

Valerie said...

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. Never eating a Twinkie again.