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Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats |  | Author: Steve Ettlinger
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  49 reviews
Sales Rank: 433903
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.7
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.308
ASIN: B001UE7DHI
Publication Date: February 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| • | Kindle Edition - Twinkie, Deconstructed | | • | Paperback - Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats | | • | Kindle Edition - Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats | | • | Audible Audio Edition - Twinkie, Deconstructed | | • | Hardcover - Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats | | • | Audio CD - 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 - Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats |
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Product Description
A pop-science journey into the surprising ingredients found in most common packaged foods
Like most Americans, Steve Ettlinger eats processed foods. And, like most consumers, he didnt have a clue as to what most of the ingredients on the labels mean. So when his young daughter asked, Daddy, whats polysorbate 60? he was at a lossand determined to find out.
From the phosphate mines in Idaho to the oil fields in China, Twinkie, Deconstructed demystifies some of the most common processed food ingredients where they come from, how they are made, how they are usedand why. Beginning at the source (hint: theyre often more closely linked to rock and petroleum than any of the four food groups), we follow each Twinkie ingredient through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powderall for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.
An insightful exploration of the modern food industry, if youve ever wondered what youre eating when you consume foods containing mono- and diglycerides or calcium sulfate (the latter a food-grade equivalent of plaster of paris), this book is for you.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 49
 Errors in Washington Post review June 6, 2007
Steve Ettlinger (New York, NY)
94 out of 98 found this review helpful
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
If we are what we eat .... OY!!! April 23, 2007
D. Reinstein (Fairfax, CA USA)
49 out of 53 found this review helpful
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!
My Mother Warned Me About Eating These Products, But Would I Listen? May 19, 2007
Frederick S. Goethel (Central Valley, CA)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
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.
An excellent information source April 2, 2007
Bryan Schuman (Federal Way, WA United States)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book is full of good general information about what we are eating these days. It covers many of the basic ingredients used in the modern food industry from basic salt and flour to FD&C Red #40. He attempts to cover everything from the history of the food to what else the products are used for in a concise and easy to understand manner. He avoids taking a side on certain conflict ingredients, such as high-fructose corn syrup, but still presents both sides of debates when they exist.
Overall, it is an interesting collection of information that has been compiled into this book, and I think it is important reading material for anyone who really wants to know what they are eating. What hit me the hardest when reading this book is just how processed and industrialized we have become in America with our food. It is mind-opening to realize just how dependent we are on certain companies and plants for some aspects of our food production we really are.
Overall, an excellent and important read.
Brilliant! March 6, 2007
Elizabeth Sargent (Annapolis, MD USA)
23 out of 31 found this review helpful
This is surprising information written as part travelog, part entertainment (it is quite witty) and thorough research. Just amazing. There is a human-being learning these incredible facts and sharing them with a light touch that is nevertheless convincing. I learned a lot and enjoyed being both enlightened and horrified - "in a good way".
Showing reviews 1-5 of 49
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