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

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this delightful romp through the food processing industry, Ettlinger, who writes on consumer products (The Complete Illustrated Guide to Everything Sold in Hardware Stores), says, "Believers of urban legends take note.... Twinkies are not just made of chemicals," nor will their ingredients allow them to last, "even exposed on a roof, for 25 years." But what exactly their ingredients are, and how they come from places like Minnesota and Madagascar to be made into what Ettlinger calls "the uber-iconic food product, the archetype of all processed foods," is the subject of his book. Each chapter looks at individual ingredients, in the same order as on a Twinkie package, so Ettlinger finds himself traveling to eastern Pennsylvania farms to study wheat, as well as to high-security plants that manufacture highly toxic chlorine used in minute amounts to make the bleached flour that is "the only kind that works in sugar-heavy" Twinkies or birthday and wedding cakes. His exploration of the manufacturing processes of cellulose gum ("perfect for lending viscosity to the filling in snack cakes—or rocket fuel"), for example, cleverly reveals how Twinkie ingredients "are produced by or dependent on nearly every basic industry we know." (Mar. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

If you want to explore all the unpronounceable and highly suspect ingredients we consume daily, what better starting point could you choose than that classic golden crème-filled cake reputedly capable of withstanding a nuclear holocaust? In Twinkie, Deconstructed, Steve Ettlinger sets out on just such an exploration, with mixed results.

"Where does pol-y-sor-bate six-tee come from, Daddy?" This is the question that inspires Ettlinger to research every ingredient listed on the back of the Twinkie wrapper, from enriched flour right on down to Yellow Dye No. 5. Having "always wondered what those strange-sounding ingredients were" as he read food labels "purely out of habit" (though not, apparently, out of any concern about what he was pouring down the throats of his innocent progeny), Ettlinger travels to plants, mines and refineries the world over, where he witnesses all manner of centrifuging, sifting and mixing of the flammable petroleum products that eventually make their way into these snack cakes. He also talks to lots of PR guys, who alternately give him the big tour, the runaround and the reassurance that there is absolutely no reason to fear any of the highly processed, sinisterly named ingredients that make a Twinkie's creamless "crème" creamy and its eggless cake crumbly -- even when, as happens time after time, they say they can't really go into how those ingredients get made. And Ettlinger, it seems, believes them.

Twinkie, Deconstructed takes such a rosy view of its subject as to give the reader intellectual whiplash. Ettlinger sees no omen of imminent apocalypse in the fact that the biotechnology corporation Monsanto produces both Roundup® herbicide and Roundup Ready® soybeans, genetically modified to resist Monsanto's own product. Those ®s, by the way, appear on every page of Twinkie, in loving lists of the countless processed foods -- "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter® . . . Lee Iacocca's Olivio® . . . Edy's® Grand Light Rich & Creamy Vanilla" -- that incorporate, say, mono and diglycerides.

Nothing wrong with divergent opinions -- that, plus polysorbate 60, is what makes chocolate and vanilla. "Processed" doesn't equal "toxic" -- enriched flour wiped out pellagra, a once common nutritional deficiency that killed 100,000 Americans in the 20th century alone. But Ettlinger's characterization of partially hydrogenated soybean shortening as a "magnificent culinary achievement" is hard to swallow, as is the argument of high fructose corn syrup producers that portion size, rather than HFCS itself, is responsible for the obesity epidemic. I can't help suspecting that rather than getting some answers from the huge, and hugely opaque, food-processing industry that profoundly affects the way we feed ourselves, Ettlinger settled for drinking the Kool-Aid®.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594630186
• ISBN-13: 978-1594630187
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #315,317 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Errors in Washington Post review, June 6, 2007

By	Steve Ettlinger "Author" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

As the author, I have to alert you that the Washington Post review contains at leat four factual errors that imply the actual opposite of what I wrote, to wit:

"He also talks to lots of PR guys..." - I did not, and not one PR person is cited. I spoke with engineers, technicians, and scientists.

"PR guys...give him... the reassurance that there is absolutely no reason to fear any of the highly processed, sinisterly named ingredients... And Ettlinger, it seems, believes them." -- Wrong. Amid all my citations of toxic and explosive sub-ingredients, there is no affirmation of any PR guy's assertions.

"Ettlinger's characterization of partially hydrogenated soybean shortening as a `magnificent culinary achievement' is hard to swallow..." -- Ironic. This quote is actually a joke about the French and cheap pastries that introduces a section on trans fats, where I state that shortening "was almost killing us."

Powell also implies that I accept " ...the argument of high fructose corn syrup producers that portion size, rather than HFCS itself, is responsible for the obesity epidemic." -- Wrong. I emphatically write that the issue is clearly unresolved and full of controversy.

I would appreciate it if Amazon would correct these errors or at least publish my corrections. Thank you.

Steve Ettlinger

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If we are what we eat .... OY!!!, April 23, 2007

By	D. Reinstein "marindavid" (Fairfax, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Steve Ettlinger is an interesting man. In about a dozen previous books, he has often demonstrated not only his interest in and concerns about various consumer issues and realities, but has investigated each to a degree not commonly found in books written for the general public. For example, The Complete Guide To Everything Sold In Hardware Stores, The Complete Guide To Everything Sold In Garden Centers, The Complete Guide To Everything Sold In Marine Supply Stores, and Guides For Dummies to both French and Italian wines, he probes each seemingly obvious area to a degree of depth and detail so that more than information is provided: Reading his books can be more accurately characterized as an experience.

In the volume at hand, his newest published effort to date, he chooses one seemingly simple, immensely popular and globally ubiquitous food snack item, the Twinkie to scrutinize, one ingredient at a time, as a sometimes humorous and sometimes gut wrenching example of what has come to pass as food in our times. He is not picking on these readily recognizable little cream-filled snack cakes. Rather, he is using them as a paradigm representative example of how foods and non-foods alike are processed and folded into our intake supply. He raises more questions than he answers - seeing his responsibility as primarily that of providing consumers with information that might be helpful to them.

He researches, visits manufacturing plants, speaks with various company people and winds up with a chapter by chapter analysis of the etiology, processing and purpose of each and every ingredient listed on the Twinkies label. In case you have not read one lately, these include in descending order of volume in the product: Wheat Flour; Bleach; Ferrous Sulfate; B Vitamins - Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1), Roboflavin (B2) and Folic Acid; Sugar; Corn Sweeteners; Corn Syrup, Dextrose, Glucose and High Fructose Corn Syrup; Corn Thickeners: Cornstarch, Modified Cornstarch, Corn Dextrins and Corn Flour; Water; Soy: Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil and/or Animal Shortening, Soy Lecithin and Soy Protein Isolate; Eggs; Cellulose Gum; Whey; Leavenings; Baking Soda; Phosphates: Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate and Monocalcium Phosphate; Salt; Mono and Diglycerides; Polysorbate 60 (the ingredient his own child asked about that got the author going on this subject); Natural and Artificial Flavors; Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate; Sodium and Calcium Caseinate; Calcium Sulfate; Sorbic Acid; and FD&C Yellow No. 5 and Red No.40. Quite a list from something that looks simple enough to have been made from flour, sugar, water and cream (which it, originally, was!)

I expect that we have all looked at ingredient lists from time to time - some of us with more scrutiny than others - but this analysis of each and every thing that has gone into a particularly well known product is, in my experience, both unique and profoundly informative. Not just about Twinkies but about the nature of our entire food supply, much of which contains various degrees of processed ingredients. This book is, then, a close look at one product but is best understood as a microcosmically specific look at a MUCH larger situation. Processed foods we consume every day.

Bullet statements on the back of the dust cover, raise the aura of the themes presented, documented and offered up for our information and consideration. Among them are:
-Flour dust is explosive
-Homeland Security figures prominently in modern food production
-Glucose, the form of sugar that adds bulk and sweetness to Twinkies' crumb and filling, also adds glossiness to shoe leather and prolongs concrete setting
-The iron compound in enriched flour is also used as a common weed killer
-Only a small percentage of the 750 pounds of cornstarch that's manufactured annually goes into food like Twinkies. Two-thirds is used to make paper, cardboard and packaging "peanuts."
-When cooked, cotton cellulose is transformed into a soft goo, perfect for lending a slippery sensation to the filling in snack cakes - and rocket fuel
-Phosphorous, one of the seven elements necessary for life, is also what puts the glow in tracer bullets and causes artillery shells to explode.

As it turns out, some of the ingredients start off as natural foods and are processed into an entirely unnatural component. Some others are not now nor were they every naturally occurring substances - they are lab creations. Man made chemicals. Some were pretty clearly never intended to be ingested by animals - human or otherwise. Some seem likely harmless while others sound insidiously toxic. From a manufacturing point of view, each and everyone makes sense to achieve one of three basic goals. These are to 1) Extend the shelf life of the product; 2) To keep the cream filling and cake around it from blending into each other while they await consumption and, of course 3) To keep the costs of production as low as possible so as to increase the profit margin to the greatest degree allowable by the FDA.

There are natural, or MORE natural food alternatives to just about everything. Some may be worth a try. I remember swearing off red meat for a year or so after reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in college. I have had a similar reaction to processed "foods" that turn out to contain little if any actual "food" since finishing this book.

If you already have strong opinions about this subject, I doubt that this book will change your mind - unless you are open to having it changed. Whether or not it causes you to rethink some of your eating habits, I think the curious will find it an engaging, entertaining and at times frightening read. Check it out!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Mother Warned Me About Eating These Products, But Would I Listen? , May 19, 2007

By	Frederick S. Goethel "wildcatcreekbooks" (Central Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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My wife has worked for years as a safety manager in the food industry, so I didn't expect too many surprises when I read this book. After all, I had been hearing about some of these products for about 15 years, in one fashion or another. And it didn't come as a shock that what is in snack cakes is also found in chips and cereal, as much of highly processed food is similar in content; it's just the arrangement that changes.

Maybe I took these materials for granted, as I have seen them in their finished state in boxes which the companies were getting ready to use. Somehow a material that is labeled "... Company Concentrated Chip Spice (Sour Cream & Onion)" just does not seem as intimidating as the chemicals presented in this book.

I was disgusted by the manufacturing technique of many of the chemicals, but realize that the science of chemistry is taking one molecule and making it into an entirely different molecule in the quickest and cheapest method possible. As long as the hazardous reactants are removed, I'm not really that terrified by eating most of these compounds, although I'm not that thrilled, either.

I can't wait to show my daughter this book, as she insists that canned spray cheese is really cheese, even though I keep telling her it is cheese food product. Reading this book will make her realize the difference between cheese food product and real cheese!

I did find the book fascinating and easy to read. The author did a wonderful job of blending the material with its source, its manufacture and then with its need within the recipe for the finished product. It was somewhat like reading a travelogue, a cookbook and a chemistry book rolled into one. Although the chemistry is fairly complex, the author does a wonderful job of digesting it into terms that even a chemistry dummy like me can understand and enjoy.

While I will look at a lot of foods differently, this book won't change what I eat. It will change my ability to understand and appreciate just what went into the finished product. I would highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in what they eat, in chemistry or in cooking. It is incredibly well written and will certainly make you think about what you are eating and the cost associated with our love of junk food.