Twinkie, Deconstructed: Processing the American Diet

Have you ever gone to the supermarket, flipped over the package of a processed food and stared blankly at the ingredients? Have you ever wondered what whey protein, polysorbate 60 or high fructose corn syrup is?

Well, so did Steve Ettlinger, author of a new book called Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients in Processed Foods are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats. But he did nothing about it until his daughter asked him what polysorbate 60 was.

In his book, Ettlinger leads us through every step needed to manufacture a Twinkie. Ettlinger describes mines and mile-long factories and reveals the enormous industrial effort that goes into making a Twinkie, although the book can be generalized to include all processed foods.

Ettlinger has been an author, editor, and book producer since 1985. He has appeared on a number of television and radio shows, including The Today Show and Good Morning America. He has helped create over 40 books, and is currently working on a documentary about artificial ingredients.

Ettlinger spoke with AlterNet over the phone.

Vanja Petrovic: Why deconstruct the Twinkie? Why not another typical processed product like, for example, a Diet Coke?

Steve Ettlinger: When I first wanted to do this book, I knew I wanted to do something on processed food and processed food ingredients and food additives. ... When I realized that Twinkies had the right ingredient list length, I also realized I had a wonderful subject because everybody relates to Twinkies. And everybody associates Twinkies with the subject of my book: processed foods. It's sort of the archetype of processed food.

Petrovic: Does deconstructing the Twinkie deconstruct the American diet?

Ettlinger: I don't know about the American diet, but it deconstructs the typical processed food. The ingredients in the Twinkie are found in most common processed foods, not the same way obviously, because Twinkies are baked and sweet, but you find many of the same ingredients in everything -- literally -- from soup to nuts.

Petrovic: How is the Twinkie generated by the American way of life?

Ettlinger I'm dealing with the ingredients and not with the Twinkie as a social phenomenon. But, you know, I had to address that just because it's such an amazing phenomenon. ...

Our way of life creates a need for something that can be shipped by truck. And so you get a tomato with a tough skin and a firm texture, so it can be shipped. And that's because our way of life says we want to have tomatoes year-round. Our way of life might say we want something that can be wrapped in plastic and not lose flavor. Our way of life might say we want little servings of foods packaged separately; we don't want to have to cut something. So, you're led to see something like I just saw a couple of hours ago -- a bag of sliced apples. It strikes me as a complete waste of energy and time, but it's a convenience food.

Petrovic: So, do you think this is a negative -- sliced apples that have stuff put in them so they don't turn brown?

Ettlinger I do. I think it's a shame. But I also understand the desire for it. I'm part of a number of people who want to eat really great tasting apples of different varieties, and I have to pay for that privilege to eat a really fine apple from the farmers' market that's not a Golden Delicious. ...

Listen, I'm eating some food tonight that was flown in on an airplane from Europe -- some Dutch cheese -- and it's wrapped in plastic. It wouldn't be here if it weren't for a whole lot of effort, industrial effort, even though it's cheese and therefore not highly processed. ... So, I'm not looking down on anybody who creates a need for a complex process to bring themselves some gustatory pleasure, because I do that too. I'm drinking beer that was probably brewed in England, so that's a pretty big deal.