Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What A

By Steve Ettlinger



If you eat processed food then you should read this book. The author picked the Twinkie because it is a good representation of the ingredients used in most processed foods. He picked up the idea when his kids, following his lead of looking at the back of wrappers, asked him what Polysorbate 60 was and he couldn’t answer them.

Who hasn’t looked at the back of a wrapper and wondered why there are so many ingredients and what do they all do. Delve into Twinkie to find out. I did. Each chapter is a different ingredient. The author follows each to the source, be it from corn, petroleum or a real food. You know, this book goes right along with Terrors of the Table. A fascinating read about where the stuff we put in to our mouth comes from. I guess this book wouldn’t exist if everyone bought their food fresh everyday. There would be no need for the chemical companies to engineer ways to keep stuff fresh for longer and longer periods.

So you think you can make a cake with only some flour, eggs, sugar and butter? Well if you do, don’t expect it to stay fresh for long. You see your normal cake is loaded with moisture. This can allow bacteria and mold to grow; the fats will separate over time causing your cake to go rancid. But stir in some emulsifiers and you can start to reduce the moisture. Yet one substitution leads to another to get everything to mix together and look the right color as a real baked cake.

Thanks to Steve, I now know what all the strange ingredients are for. Now if I could only keep all the origins about the ingredients straight in my head I’d be set. This book really needs to be read a second time.