Pat’s Reviews > Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats > Status Update

Twinkie bakeries use 1 million eggs a year to produce 500 million twinkies. I was intrigued eggs were used not for nutrition but because the eggs act like glue that hold the twinkie together. As far as were those eggs come from, they've already been cracked and dried at factories. I also learned they use egg laying chickens (scrawny, not plump), different from the bigger meat chickens we usually eat.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is cornstarch cooked with enzymes.Some say say eating foods with HFCS is fine, as long as we exercise it off. The reality, no one does. Our HFCS intake has gone higher due to more foods being processed with it such as soda, which is now served in larger proportions. This made me think, we do have the power to change our diets, but will anyone really do it?

Sugar in twinkies isn't just for sweetness. During mixing it tenderizes the cake, mixed with cake flour, it creates a liquid batter. I was also intrigued the fact that twinkies are baked for nine to twelve minutes at around three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

So far I am amazed at the facts Ettlinger has discovered. Ingredients such as simple flour to the complexities of adding bleach (chlorine). (Whoaaa.) I've learned that the process and these facilities are very secretive since through using these chemicals, if exposed to the wrong conditions, the factory is capable of exploding due to the mixture of sunlight or heat. These dangers for a twinkie? Wow.

I've read the introduction and the author chose to find out what products like the twinkie are really made of because his six year old daughter asked him what was in ice cream bars they were eating. As a father, he admitted he had no clue. Now he'd find out the original process, even from simple rocks and minerals.

I have yet to get a copy of the book. However I've chosen to read this book because while the cover shows a delectable snack, the title made me wonder what is this sugary treat really made of. With this book breaking down the ingredients, I hope I am not disgusted with what I will find out.