Have a Twinkie with Your Nuggets & Tots
By Stephanie Lynn, age 22, Massachusetts
SDM Editor-in-Chief
What has 39 ingredients ... and, uh, also 14 chemicals? You guessed it. It's a Twinkie! Did you forget about that Twinkie you didn't eat at lunch, and now you've discovered it in the back of your messy locker? No problem. It'll still be just as tasty as it was last month.
So what is in each and every delicious bite anyway? Yellow No. 5 food dye (from Benzene, used in gasoline and plastics), cellulose gum (used to keep them moist and glossy, also appearing in denture cream, ice cream, and diapers), polysorbate 60 (I mean, why use milk and eggs which spoil when you can make a chemical creme filling good till the year 2200?), gypsum (also used in sheetrock - in other words, your bedroom wall). Mmmm.
Alas, ladies, a Twinkie won't really stay fresh till you're in a nursing home. But its 25 day shelf life is about 23 days longer than a sponge cake with cream filling you could make at home. The good news? What goes into Twinkies is nowhere near as bad for you as what goes into chicken nuggets!
