Twinkie, Deconstructed: No Cream in the Creme

STEVE ETTLINGER

Shouldn’t we be able to admit that we already know that chemicals have always been in our food, and that food is made of chemicals? In fact, food additives — some as old and simple as salt and sugar — keep good food from going bad, and thus prevent food from occasionally killing us. In fact, all food is chemicals and all cooking is chemistry (“Cooking is just science that’s tasty,” the old saying goes). Remember, the chemicals hydrogen oxide, cellulose, hemicellulose, malic acid, dextrose, fructose, pectin, sucrose, amylacetate and citric acid are found in nature’s perfect food: the apple (in fact, that is the apple’s complete ingredient list).

While there is no reason to be paranoid — these additives have been tested and in use for ages — there is reason to be vigilant. That may be what fuels the very negative reaction to genetically modified foods (GM) in Europe, something that is only beginning here. Now the competing consumer trends of natural or organic foods vs. traditional convenience foods are coming into sharper focus and voices on both sides are becoming more shrill.

To underscore the confusion around the question of the healthfulness of artificial ingredients, try reflecting on the fact that one of the world’s most lethal chemicals, chlorine, and one of the most reactive chemicals, sodium, have an exalted place on every table in the Western world: the salt shaker. Or reduced to the absurd: Should the ingredient H2O scare us because it is often found mixed in with acids and poisons? Shall we sound the alarm? How about those food scientists who manipulate molecules to make new foods? But wait — isn’t moving molecules around what you do when you fry an egg or bake a cake or even boil water?

In fact, it’s not just the commercial bakers who put unpronounceables in their cakes — you do, too, when you add baking powder, enriched, bleached flour, or even shortening to your homemade confections. “It just ain’t plain eggs and butter, pal,” as one friendly chef once told me. Examining the labels found on supermarket shelves, it becomes obvious that Twinkies are merely an archetype of almost all modern processed foods; so many others share their ingredients and attempts at immortality on the shelf, ranging from Oreos (which can last six months) to Freihofer’s 100% Whole Wheat Bread. And contrary to the old joke, Twinkies still won’t survive a nuclear war. They’re just food. One that lots of us like, and have for a good long time.

All artificial ingredients, like recipes, reflect the balance of various needs (or our perceptions of needs) such as shelf life (long), taste (sweet), texture (fat), convenience (high), price (low), packaging (airtight), nutrition (sound) and legal requirements — and none would exist if there was no profit in it. All are needs generated by our own way of life. It seems that we are, indeed, what we eat.

Back when the original Twinkie was low-tech, it was not good for anyone to find a spoiled cake on a shelf. Before getting on a high horse to decry the excessive pressures of capitalism that force food to be so overwhelmingly engineered, we need to remember this: No farmer would bring his or her crops to market without the promise of a reward. Modern food technology is a growth business. On the retail end, packaged food and soft drinks generate close to $400 billion in U.S. sales each year — and their suppliers, whether processors of corn or colors, are large corporations dependent on growth to survive. They fan the flames of consumer demand to maintain the marketplace.

Steve Ettlinger is an author and editor. The comments above were excerpted by permission from his book, “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” published by Plume, a division of the Penguin Group.