dd20041019 - junk-food

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Twilight for the Twinkie

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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