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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review - By Michael Stillman Author Steve Ettlinger deconstructs the Twinkie. By Michael Stillman A recently released book -- Twinkie Deconstructed, by Steve Ettlinger -- will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Twinkies, those iconic symbols of modern, prepackaged "food." Well, not quite everything. The one element missing is the answer to the most important question of all -- can I safely eat these things? This most elemental question is one Ettlinger leaves for you to decide. Perhaps this is not what you would expect. With a title like that, you figure the author's intent is to convince you never to let one of them near your lips again. Its ingredients sound more like those of the chemistry set you had as a child than food. It was perhaps this assumption that led baker Hostess™ not to cooperate with this book. That was a mistake. Ettlinger is fair and factual, more interested in informing than proselytizing. His goal is simply to tell you what is in them (all 39 ingredients), where they come from, and how they are made. From the start, he notes that this is not really about Twinkies anyway. It is about all of our processed foods, which is much if not the majority of what most of us eat. Twinkies, because they are so iconic, was selected for his study, but if you come away believing that Twinkies should not be eaten, you better be prepared to drop just about everything else you don't buy fresh at the local farmers' market as well. Ettlinger's book is really a tour. He looks at the list of ingredients, explains how they are made, and then goes on the road to visit the plants where they are produced. Some welcome him. Others close their doors. Still, he is able to provide us with a non-technical explanation of what goes on behind the scenes. If there is a weakness to this book, it's that there are so many ingredients, produced in similar ways in huge plants, that it tends to feel a bit repetitive after awhile. Why so many ingredients? Each one has its own purpose, though many perform similar functions in different ways. Most eventually come back to the one important factor that was not an issue for your grandmother when she baked a cake -- shelf life. Grandma's cake was eaten within a day or two after it was baked, likely in the very same kitchen. Twinkies must survive for 25 days and hundreds if not thousands of miles on the road. And, after all that, they must taste, look and feel exactly as they did when they first came out of the oven. That is a major challenge. The first issues that come to mind for 25 days of shelf life are spoilage and staleness. But, it's even more difficult than just this. For example, Twinkies have a "creme" (not to be confused with cream) filling, surrounded by a firm cake. Naturally, you would expect moisture from the "creme" to escape to surrounding cake, making it unappealingly soggy. This is unacceptable, even after 25 days. So modified cornstarch, one of those "what's this?" ingredients is added. Now some people may become uneasy when they discover that sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, which could dissolve metal, is used to "modify" this natural ingredient. Grandma didn't use it, but her cake never lasted long enough for weeping to become a problem.
Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review - By Michael Stillman none Or how about cellulose gum? This is a vegetarian item, though it comes from either trees or cotton plants, which few of us eat, and must be treated with lye and other unappetizing chemicals first. Still, it can hold 15-20 times its weight in water, just what is needed to keep that delicious, though strange "creme" perfectly moist. Then come the pure chemical elements, things that are mined rather than grown. This certainly sounds unappetizing, but most of these are ones that appear in the little feared baking soda, and of course, the mined mineral we all sprinkle on our food -- salt. Perhaps ones that come from petroleum are even more frightening. Sorbic acid is the major preservative, extremely effective at killing mold. Will this petroleum-based ingredient kill you too? Not likely, since the same stuff used to be processed from berries. It's just cheaper to extract it from petroleum, which is, after all, organic material, albeit older than most we consume. Perhaps it's the sorbic acid that preserves petroleum's "freshness" for millions of years. Along with his study of the source of the ingredients, Ettlinger brings us on a tour through many of the huge manufacturing plants. These products aren't made just for Twinkies, but for numerous other foods as well as non-food products. With a population of 300 million to feed in America alone, the quantities needed are astounding. My favorite is the egg-breaking facility in New Jersey that cracks open 7 million shells a day. Seven million! I cannot conceive of dealing with 7 million eggs every day. A machine splits the eggs open, while cupped hands on each side tilt and shake the eggs' two halves, like a cook's two hands with a cracked egg. While the chemicals sound the most frightening, Ettlinger does bring up the really dangerous issue -- partially hydrogenated oils. Here is a very simplified, unscientific explanation. Due to the cost and health factors associated with animal fats, vegetable oil was seen as a healthy substitute. However, vegetable oil is a liquid, and a solid form is needed. It was discovered that pumping hydrogen though the oil would result in a solidified form. The hydrogen somehow clings to the molecules and adjusts their form accordingly. Partial hydrogenation, where enough hydrogen is added to cling only to some molecules, produced the ideal balance between liquid and solid form (soft solid). However, partial hydrogenation, for reasons perhaps no one fully understands, creates trans fats, oddly shaped molecules that increase our production of bad cholesterol and decrease the production of good. These things are deadly. These trans fats are no longer found in Twinkies, but their one-time presence, at a time when scientists believed they were a healthy substitute, can make you wonder if there is still more unknown danger lurking in these myriad ingredients that bear little resemblance to what we traditionally think of as food.
Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review - By Michael Stillman none So for all the fascinating and extensive information Ettlinger provides us, we still come away feeling a bit unsatisfied (something that never happens when eating a Twinkie). We really don't know whether these things are safe to eat. If you spent the last 50 years in a cave, the list of ingredients would probably horrify you. If you have been reading the ingredient lists on packages for years, Ettlinger's clinical description of the processes and the organic beginnings of most ingredients might strangely reassure you. These ingredients aren't pretty, but perhaps not quite as awful as they sound. Do I fear Twinkies? Yes, though not because of Ettlinger's book. I'm not too fearful of the chemicals, though perhaps I should be. I've come to accept them as a necessary evil. The reality is, few of us live close enough to farms to survive on an entirely natural, fresh diet. Certain evils are necessary to keep 300 million mostly urban or suburban people fed. But I rarely eat Twinkies anymore, though once I did. No, it's the fat and calories that scare me. I fear clogged arteries and excessive weight more than strange chemicals. Twinkies provide virtually no nutrition but lots of fat and fat inducing calories. America has become a nation of obesity, and clogged arteries is an unpleasant side effect. There was a time when I had Twinkies or something from the Hostess stable at lunch everyday (my favorite is the widely despised Snowball). Now, I may have a Hostess snack 2 or 3 times over the course of a year. This is better for me. But I miss them.

Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review

- By Michael Stillman

Author Steve Ettlinger deconstructs the Twinkie.

By Michael Stillman

A recently released book -- Twinkie Deconstructed, by Steve Ettlinger -- will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Twinkies, those iconic symbols of modern, prepackaged "food." Well, not quite everything. The one element missing is the answer to the most important question of all -- can I safely eat these things? This most elemental question is one Ettlinger leaves for you to decide.

Perhaps this is not what you would expect. With a title like that, you figure the author's intent is to convince you never to let one of them near your lips again. Its ingredients sound more like those of the chemistry set you had as a child than food. It was perhaps this assumption that led baker Hostess™ not to cooperate with this book. That was a mistake. Ettlinger is fair and factual, more interested in informing than proselytizing. His goal is simply to tell you what is in them (all 39 ingredients), where they come from, and how they are made. From the start, he notes that this is not really about Twinkies anyway. It is about all of our processed foods, which is much if not the majority of what most of us eat. Twinkies, because they are so iconic, was selected for his study, but if you come away believing that Twinkies should not be eaten, you better be prepared to drop just about everything else you don't buy fresh at the local farmers' market as well.

Ettlinger's book is really a tour. He looks at the list of ingredients, explains how they are made, and then goes on the road to visit the plants where they are produced. Some welcome him. Others close their doors. Still, he is able to provide us with a non-technical explanation of what goes on behind the scenes. If there is a weakness to this book, it's that there are so many ingredients, produced in similar ways in huge plants, that it tends to feel a bit repetitive after awhile.

Why so many ingredients? Each one has its own purpose, though many perform similar functions in different ways. Most eventually come back to the one important factor that was not an issue for your grandmother when she baked a cake -- shelf life. Grandma's cake was eaten within a day or two after it was baked, likely in the very same kitchen. Twinkies must survive for 25 days and hundreds if not thousands of miles on the road. And, after all that, they must taste, look and feel exactly as they did when they first came out of the oven. That is a major challenge.

The first issues that come to mind for 25 days of shelf life are spoilage and staleness. But, it's even more difficult than just this. For example, Twinkies have a "creme" (not to be confused with cream) filling, surrounded by a firm cake. Naturally, you would expect moisture from the "creme" to escape to surrounding cake, making it unappealingly soggy. This is unacceptable, even after 25 days. So modified cornstarch, one of those "what's this?" ingredients is added. Now some people may become uneasy when they discover that sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, which could dissolve metal, is used to "modify" this natural ingredient. Grandma didn't use it, but her cake never lasted long enough for weeping to become a problem.

Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review

- By Michael Stillman

none

Or how about cellulose gum? This is a vegetarian item, though it comes from either trees or cotton plants, which few of us eat, and must be treated with lye and other unappetizing chemicals first. Still, it can hold 15-20 times its weight in water, just what is needed to keep that delicious, though strange "creme" perfectly moist.

Then come the pure chemical elements, things that are mined rather than grown. This certainly sounds unappetizing, but most of these are ones that appear in the little feared baking soda, and of course, the mined mineral we all sprinkle on our food -- salt. Perhaps ones that come from petroleum are even more frightening. Sorbic acid is the major preservative, extremely effective at killing mold. Will this petroleum-based ingredient kill you too? Not likely, since the same stuff used to be processed from berries. It's just cheaper to extract it from petroleum, which is, after all, organic material, albeit older than most we consume. Perhaps it's the sorbic acid that preserves petroleum's "freshness" for millions of years.

Along with his study of the source of the ingredients, Ettlinger brings us on a tour through many of the huge manufacturing plants. These products aren't made just for Twinkies, but for numerous other foods as well as non-food products. With a population of 300 million to feed in America alone, the quantities needed are astounding. My favorite is the egg-breaking facility in New Jersey that cracks open 7 million shells a day. Seven million! I cannot conceive of dealing with 7 million eggs every day. A machine splits the eggs open, while cupped hands on each side tilt and shake the eggs' two halves, like a cook's two hands with a cracked egg.

While the chemicals sound the most frightening, Ettlinger does bring up the really dangerous issue -- partially hydrogenated oils. Here is a very simplified, unscientific explanation. Due to the cost and health factors associated with animal fats, vegetable oil was seen as a healthy substitute. However, vegetable oil is a liquid, and a solid form is needed. It was discovered that pumping hydrogen though the oil would result in a solidified form. The hydrogen somehow clings to the molecules and adjusts their form accordingly. Partial hydrogenation, where enough hydrogen is added to cling only to some molecules, produced the ideal balance between liquid and solid form (soft solid). However, partial hydrogenation, for reasons perhaps no one fully understands, creates trans fats, oddly shaped molecules that increase our production of bad cholesterol and decrease the production of good. These things are deadly. These trans fats are no longer found in Twinkies, but their one-time presence, at a time when scientists believed they were a healthy substitute, can make you wonder if there is still more unknown danger lurking in these myriad ingredients that bear little resemblance to what we traditionally think of as food.

Deconstructing Twinkies: What's in those Things? - A Book Review

- By Michael Stillman

none

So for all the fascinating and extensive information Ettlinger provides us, we still come away feeling a bit unsatisfied (something that never happens when eating a Twinkie). We really don't know whether these things are safe to eat. If you spent the last 50 years in a cave, the list of ingredients would probably horrify you. If you have been reading the ingredient lists on packages for years, Ettlinger's clinical description of the processes and the organic beginnings of most ingredients might strangely reassure you. These ingredients aren't pretty, but perhaps not quite as awful as they sound.

Do I fear Twinkies? Yes, though not because of Ettlinger's book. I'm not too fearful of the chemicals, though perhaps I should be. I've come to accept them as a necessary evil. The reality is, few of us live close enough to farms to survive on an entirely natural, fresh diet. Certain evils are necessary to keep 300 million mostly urban or suburban people fed. But I rarely eat Twinkies anymore, though once I did. No, it's the fat and calories that scare me. I fear clogged arteries and excessive weight more than strange chemicals. Twinkies provide virtually no nutrition but lots of fat and fat inducing calories. America has become a nation of obesity, and clogged arteries is an unpleasant side effect. There was a time when I had Twinkies or something from the Hostess stable at lunch everyday (my favorite is the widely despised Snowball). Now, I may have a Hostess snack 2 or 3 times over the course of a year. This is better for me. But I miss them.