Snack sleuth: What's in a Twinkie?
Author crosses globe to find natural sources of ingredients
By Suzanne Bohan, STAFF WRITER
Article Created: 02/18/2008 02:35:46 AM PST
.....Although Ettlinger chose Twinkies for his in-depth exploration of food additives, he's quick to point out that the book is a treatise on processed foods in general.
"This book is not just about Twinkies, I keep telling the lawyers from Hostess," he quipped to another crowd who gathered Wednesday at the University of California, Berkeley, to hear his talk. "All of these ingredients are in processed foods."
What he discovered continually astounded Ettlinger. "So many of the items are made directly from petroleum products, including natural gas or crude oil" he said. "That just blows my mind."
Tyler Shores, a Google employee who invited Ettlinger to speak, also expressed amazement after the talk. "It's not one of those things that you would ever think about until you're exposed to it," Shores said.
While eight of the ingredients in Twinkies come from domestic corn, and three from soybeans, others are derived from sources as divergent as rocks, trees and petroleum products (The latter are used to make niacin and food coloring, among other food products).
Still, despite the astonishing origins of many of these ingredients, he stops short of calling them a public health concern...SOURCE
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