July 9, 2009 • 25 mins
Twinkies have a reputation for being so processed that they can last for years and years, but they're not as hardy as you'd expect. Uncover the sweet story of Twinkies in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
arguably the most important podcast Chuck Bryant and I will
ever record. I'm Josh Clark. This is stuff you should know,
and brother, I am jacked up me three. You're ready? Yeah,
(00:23):
I'm speaking for Jerry. So she's the Marcel Marcello our group. Yeah,
she's always wears the gloves. Hate mins? I actually don't
hate monsisistic cliche to say you hate mins. Minds are cool?
It says who that minds are cool? Yeah? I just
said it, jerk. Chuck and I have clearly been eating
far too many Twinkies in preparation of this. Yes we have, yeah, Chuck, Yes,
(00:48):
what do you know about the twinkie? Let's talk about twinkies.
Let's talk about twinkies. Everyone knows the twinkie is a
popular junk food snack cake. Yes, legendary junk food snack egg.
I would say, I would say legendary as well. I'm
glad we're doing something light like this. Just lighten Yeah,
and Chuck, how long is it twinkie. Twinkie is uh
(01:13):
four inches long? How wide is it? Twinkie? Inch and
a half? Did you know that originally it was first
invented it was made with banana cream filling. Indeed, let's
get into this, buddy. Those are just some teasers, all right.
So the twinkie was first invented in the nineteen thirties. Yes,
Continental Bakeries. Yeah, they're the vice president of Continental Bakeries,
which is already doing business as Hostess, which we know
(01:35):
and love, is the maker of Twinkies and what I
consider to be the greatest snack food of all time,
the crumb cake. Really a fan. I like the nutty bar,
the Little Debbie nutty bars. We're not we're talking host
is here, buddy? Yeah? Um, they will assassinate you. What
are those? They're like pink balls? What are those snowballs?
(01:59):
Chucks on it? Alright, So back in the vice president
of Continental Bakery he's a guy named James. What is it,
James Dooer. James Dooer not a Scotch maker. His brother
could have been. Um. He decided that the company's idle
machinery that was used to make a strawberry filled little
(02:21):
shortbread Fingers was the brand name. Um could be put
to better use. Well, the machines were idle because sea yeah, seasonal,
because strawberries only grow certain times of the year, right,
so the rest of the year that they would just
sit there. And this bug doer and he decided to
do something about it. So he came up with a
little uh, little yellow cake filled with creamy filling jammy
(02:42):
frosting if you were, that could be made year round. Um.
And apparently on his way to a marketing meeting for
this snack cake, he passed a billboard for twinkletoe shoes,
which I gotta tell you, I would never buy shoes
called twinkletoe shoes. Sure you would, you dream sailor totally would. Uh.
And that was it. He had the name right there,
(03:04):
and Twinkies were born. Yeah, there's always a cute story
behind names like that. Anytime the words twinkle and toes
are putty together, it's a cute story. Yeah. Um, so
twinkies were born, and uh, as I said, they were
made with banana cream filling, right for a while, Yeah,
until World War Two. Yeah, I didn't this. I thought
this is pretty interesting. They quit doing that because there
(03:26):
was a shortfall of bananas during the war. Yeah, I
had no idea. No, I can see rubber and and
you know, iron steel and yeah, I know, men, maybe
it's from all the banana bombs we were dropping confetti missiles. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um,
so that they replaced the banana with vanilla frosting, right,
(03:47):
and it's stuck. Yeah, it definitely stuck. Although um every
once in a while Hostess released the banana flavored Twinkie
and like the limited run, and every time they did
they noticed sales increased, which is pretty substantial. And now
it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk
about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was
(04:10):
the early twinkie. Yeah, it was in the early days, Josh.
It was made with eggs, milk, butter, as you would
expect it to be because it was cake and it
had a shelf life. The problem there was had a
shelf life of what like two days two days, so
the salesman had to rotuate the stock every two days.
And that was cool because it tasted good. But Doer said,
(04:30):
you know, this isn't I'm not making as much money
as like a chuck. Can you imagine how divine a
twinkie made with like real butter and milk and eggs
would be. It's called it's called cake. Well yeah, but
cake with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah,
that would be great. I would love for someone to
(04:50):
make and send me a real original twinkie. That would
be awesome. Yeah. I just zoned out for a second
thinking about that. I know, seriously, you just glazed over. Okay,
So these days it's actually up to thirty nine ingredients,
and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of chemicals going on. You've got like
yellow number five. There's still sugar in plenty of sugar,
(05:12):
just corn syrup of course, our old friend. And uh,
there's also bleached wheat flour and I think sugar and
flour the two biggest ingredients in it, right right. Uh.
Monoglycerides and diaglycerides have replaced the eggs, yeah, which act
as emulsifiers. Smulsifiers, they stabilize the cake batter and enhance
the flavor. Yeah, apparently for the filling they use to
(05:36):
achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much it
emulsifies the frosting. Same thing. Yeah, and there's hydrogenated shortening
instead of butter, although there is artificial butter flavor and
artificial vanilla flavor, and both of those are actually made
from petroleum. Yeah. When I read that, I was I
(05:56):
was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm
not a big I mean to eat twinkies now anymore? Well,
you know, I don't eat at all, but I do
occasionally enjoy a twinkie for sure. I haven't had a
twinkie in a long time. Did you treat yourself? And
I'm not opposed. I mean, I'll down the Ben and
Jerry's and I'm not opposed to eating fattening goodness. I know.
I think part of it is twinkies are associated with youth. Yeah,
(06:18):
i'd agree with that. I'm telling you, go back and
eat a twinkie. You'll love yourself. Well, you know, my
mom used to make um strawberry shortcake with twinkies. Nice.
Yeah it was good, monte, very nice seventies dessert too. Yeah,
you know, before the key party, load the kids up
with a twinkie strawberry shortcake. And apparently she's not the
only one to experiment with twinkies. I have a Twinkies
(06:40):
cookbook at home, actually sorts of crazy stuff in there. Yeah,
you should have brought that in. I should have. I
don't have the kind of foresight that you expect me
to have. You had the deep fried twinkie. I used
to make them and sell them at this beer festival
the last couple of years. Oh dude, I can make
a fried twinkie like you would not believe. How do
you do that? It's incredibly simple. So you have like
a vat of oil. I think peanut oil. Maybe peanut
(07:04):
all is the best. It's the worst for you, but
it tastes the best. Um. And you just take like
pancake batter or fry batter, right, um, and you make
the batter up better up, and you you just dip
the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the deep fryer.
I just throw it in there. Wo man, that sounds good.
(07:25):
Pull it out, throw some powdered sugar on there. Oh
my god. Actually you'll see. God, it's like a funnel cake.
Turbo funnel cake is what it really is. No, not
at all, not at all. It's like it's like a
funnel cake with a Twinkie inside. It's the greatest thing
you'll ever have. And I can make a good fried
oreo too. Really, huh, you never cook for me. I
(07:47):
will sometimes you'll have to come over. We'll shave some
years off our life. Seriously, Uh excuse me? Should we
talk about the the process of how they make it
in the factory. It's kind of cool. Yeah, So, Josh,
we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance
to add some sound of thags. We're in the we're
in the Twinkie back You look good in the hairnut.
But what I appreciate that what they do is they
(08:09):
have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie shape
holes upside down. Twinkies are baked up. What you would
consider upside down golden brown bottom is actually upside There's
a lot. I actually used to hear that they weren't,
in fact baked brown, and that was added color. Not true.
They are baked brown on the bottom. Indeed, Yeah, you
(08:30):
talked to the widow of James Dowert about that, didn't
you did it? Spoke to her personally. So they throw
the battery in there. It's baked at a cool three
fifty fahrenheit for nine to twelve minutes. Cool three cool,
uh the after after cool's They you know the famous
three holes in the in the bottom of the twin tie,
(08:50):
those are from the manufacturing process. They're cream filling injectors,
and they stick those three things in there and squirt
in the cream, which I wish they just scort that
in my mouth. So you just want to lay down
on the conveyor belt and go down the twinkie line.
How the stuff sported in your mouth straight from the
the try injection? Yeah, how that sounds good. It does.
(09:11):
So that's pretty much it. Man. They seal it air
tight in the package. And um, apparently that the ceiling
process is really where the preservation comes in, right, because Chuck,
if there's anything that everyone agrees on with Twinkies, it's
that they will last indefinitely. Not true, No, it isn't.
And actually there's only one ingredient in the twinkie that's
(09:33):
added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid. Right.
There are there are some preservative properties of some of
the other ingredients, um, but ultimately there's only one added ingredient.
That's meant to preserve it. And it's actually, like you said,
the air tight package that makes a Twinkie last. And
there are all sorts of urban myths about the one
(09:54):
I like this is that the they're still selling the
original run of Twinkies, which actually is clearly alive because
they would be banana flavored. Um. But the Hostess company
says that Twinkies have a shelf life twenty five days, yeah,
not twenty five years. No, no, but yeah, there there
have been some experiments that indicate to the contrary. Um.
(10:17):
There's actually these kids who very recently this last school
year out in uh what is it, Wallowa County, Oregon,
two little kids, Logan Waldron and c J. Horne. Um.
We're talking about whether or not twinkies could last indefinitely,
how long they could last? Um. And they have a
very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based on
(10:38):
this picture, is the arguably the best looking and most
stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name is
Lisa Morris. And she said, you know what, why don't
you guys do a scientific experiment. That's that's a bus driver.
I know it's quite a babe. I know, I must say,
I know. Um, she encouraged them to uh to to
(10:59):
conduct their own experience. So they put a double pack
my favorite kind of Twinkies in a Mayonnai's jar, closed
it and put it in a rock crib, which I'm
not sure what that is, but they basically buried it.
And the kids were planning on doing it until they
were eighteen, but they just you know, they're like nine exactly.
(11:19):
But she kept encouraging them to wait at least until
the end of the school year, and they did so.
Nine months later, they popped it open, eight the twinkies,
one each. They both said they were fine. One kid
said he got a belly ache from it. The other
kid said he was fine. So they are now encouraging
teachers around the country science teachers they conduct similar experiments.
But yeah, so as far as these two are concerned,
(11:42):
a Twinkie shelf life is at least nine months greater days. Yeah, well,
I know you just mentioned the double pack. I know
you like the double pack because there's two of them. No,
because of the little cardboard in there, and you can
scrape the little uh kakey goodness off the cardboard and
eat it. I just lick it off the car board.
It's like the cheese paper and a on a cheeseburger.
(12:04):
Do you really eat all that stuff? Oh? Dude, who
doesn't take the paper from a McDonald's cheeseburger and scrape
the cheese off of it and eat it? People who
want to live? Shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pal,
Twinky Man, Twinky the Kid, let's talk about Twinkie the Kid.
I just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had
(12:25):
a Twinky the Kid t shirt when I was those
It was awesome. I wish you still had it. Yeah,
I'm sure they're still out there. Yeah, I wonder what
why Twinkie the Kid? It's famous. Uh if you've never
seen it, and I'm sure everyone has, it was a
cowboy motif lasso on a hat and boots. And I
saw a dude online today that had a Twinky the
Kid tattoo. That's a pretty cool tattoo, my friend. Yeah,
(12:48):
that definitely beats taz or a dolphin or a turtle,
sunburst barbed wire around your arm. Yeah, so Twinkie the Kid,
cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember seeing twink
of the Kid ads in between acts of thunder, the
barbarian and hanker for a hunk of cheese. Remember that,
(13:10):
what was that house rock? Now was like the nutrition people? Yeah, exactly,
I got a hanker for a hunk of pocket full
of something. Yeah, because hunk of cheese is really healthy
for you. That was clearly the dairy Association. So, Chuck,
let's talk about twinkies and pop culture. Yeah, this is
good stuff. Well, no, not pop culture, real culture history. Yeah,
(13:33):
my friend, have you heard of Twinkie Gate? Yeah, go
ahead and break that one down. That's good. So there
was a guy who was seventy one back in five
was running for a place on the Minneapolis City Council.
His name was George bel Air, and he was actually
indicted for bribery because at a I guess a candidate
for him. He was the lone candidate for it. I
(13:55):
guess it was. He hosted it, he provided, he he
provided coffee, kool Aid and twinkies for these senior groups
that were there, um, and he was indicted for bribery
trying to constituency. They didn't call it kool aid Gate, no,
And I was thinking about that too there. I think
(14:17):
kool Aid had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah,
will forever be enshrined within about drinking the kool aid. Um,
that's an Alexicon. Now drink the kool aid. Definitely, It's
got its own thing. Twinkies are much more versatile, you know. Um,
(14:37):
it's such an ironic twist to crime. You know, but
that's not the only crime that they've been associated with. Well,
can I cover this one please? In the nine Dan
White of San Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk.
It was was he a city councilman. He was and
a and a supervisor and the first, yeah supervisor, I
(15:00):
first openly homosexual public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk.
And the mayor also got capped. Mayor also got capped,
and Dan White is who did the deed. And the
famous twinkie defense was used in his case because they
said he was under a severe depression at the time
and as evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically
(15:22):
was wolfing down twinkies and junk food. Junk food. Apparently
twinkies was mentioned. It does show up in the in
the court transcripts, but it was one witness who used it.
In passing and actually ding Dong's and ho Hoes were
mentioned way more. But yeah, the guy was apparently um
homicidal depression brought on by a poor diet, and it
(15:45):
actually worked. Rather than first this is premeditated murder, he
got manslaughter and eight years that was that, yep, and
that the media ran with it in the twinkie defense.
Speak you still here, But again, why not the ding
dong defense. It's even funnier the ho ho defense. Sure
that that would be confused with Santa Claus probably you
know why, because twinkies are an American icon, me and
(16:08):
you and former President Bill the Lady Killer Clinton. Really yeah,
he actually selected a Twinkie to be placed in the
Millennium Time Capsule in alongside the complete works of Louis Armstrong.
It works at William Faulkner the state flag of Hawaii.
There's a Twinkie in there too. So in a hundred
years people will really be able to find out just
(16:29):
how long the shelf life is for twcase, how about
half a twinkie that even at perfect Yeah, you've got
the thumb out your teeth. Uh So that is the
twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mel that was the millennium capsule,
So we've moved millennium falcon. Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh,
(16:49):
should we talk about the T W I and K
I E S Project? I can't wait. Pretty cool he's
got and this is university, right, yeah, Rice University. It's
kind of a while ago. These students, as college students,
are so fun. It was called the test with inorganic
noxious cakes with a K in extreme situations, which spells
(17:11):
out twinkies. And let's let's go over a couple of
things that they did with twinkies. You tell them yours first, Okay,
let me. I want to do the water test. Uh.
What they wanted to do was, um, see what happened
when you put it twinkie in water? Straightforward enough, let's
sit there, and they said this and this is on
their website. As soon as the twinkie was placed in
the water, it swelled to approximately twice its normal size.
(17:34):
A quick tactile observation indicated that the twinkie immediately began
to lose its structural integrity. The color of the twinkie
paled to an off white color, while the water below
the twinkie turned a dark yellow brown, while the water
above the twinkie remained clear, which is interesting, and they
showed pictures. So basically they left it in there for
forty eight hours. They said the creamy filling somehow oozed
(17:56):
out of the center and collected on the surface of
the water and basically it turned into a lump of
goo by the end of it. So that was the conclusion.
The conclusion, Actually, you don't have the observation. I think
the observation was it turned into a lumpy goo of
mess in the water. You got my other favorite one
(18:17):
second favorite dropping off the building. Did you print that out? No?
You do that one? I got another one? Okay, Yeah.
They did the gravity test on two twinkies get to
find out whether or not twinkies are subject to gravity.
I think they would float up when then been cool.
So they released twinkies off the sixth floor and I
like the picture of the twinkie circle and drop, and
(18:38):
they said that upon impact there was a loud splut sound,
a small crack opened on one side of the twinkie.
There was no noticeable change in the control. So they
dropped the twinkie again. The same split sound was heard.
Then they dropped the same twinkie. Yeah, and this is
that love this line. The fissure in the side of
the twinkie wide and again no noticeable change. And basically
(19:01):
the twinkie and the control twinkie didn't really completely split
up in it, just kind of some of the stuff
oozed out. But they are affected by gravity. I did
have the conclusion in this week, however, the reaction on
impact is much smaller than expected, and they maintain maintain
a good deal of structural integrity from such a lofty fall. Yeah.
Six stories yea. My favorite actually, um was that they
(19:24):
wanted to find out whether twinkies were sentient or not,
and they decided to run this test last because they
had killed a lot of twinkies, as they put it,
and they didn't want to know that they were sentient
while they were dropping him off six you know story buildings.
So they actually administered the Turing test, which is normally
used to test whether or not a computer has developed
(19:45):
an artificial intelligence. Right, if you put a person in
a computer in another room or whatever, and you direct
questions to both of them simultaneously and both answer. If
you can't tell the difference, then the computer has developed
artificial intelligence. So they conducted a turn test or turn
sorry test on a sophomore at the college and a twinkie,
(20:08):
and they put them behind a sheet you couldn't see
who is who, and they asked certain questions. Um, like
they asked in the students. Yes, so question one was
what would you describe as the purpose of your existence?
And uh, subject B, which was the guy. Uh the
answer was to woo women and subject A in parentheses
(20:31):
no answer. And it just kind of goes on like that, like, um,
they wanted to know how the both of them felt
about their mother. Um. They did some free association, like
the word health prompted the answer sex for free association
from subject B. Um, the the word spam prompted no
answer from subject A, and so on. So they determined
(20:54):
that twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do
not have intelligence. Is a relief? Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah?
As a vegetarian, I think, or a vegan, you would
have to stop eating twinkies. Oh I'm not a vegan, No,
of course not. Okay, Yeah, I am so chuck. Most
twinkies ever eaten by a person? You want to guess
who it is? Uh? Jerry our producer. She's close. Okay,
(21:19):
she's very close. Um. Actually, there is a guy who
is eighty nine, and I believe he lives in Indiana,
and his name is Lewis Browning. He's been eating a
Twinkie a day since nineteen. He's up the twenty thousand
wow dwarfed by the creator of the Twinkie, James Dewart.
He lived to be eighty eight and he ate an
(21:41):
estimated forty thousand twinkies in his lifetime. Not bad, not
bad at all. So it hats off to both of
those men. And I actually I was thinking maybe I
should start eating a twinkie a day and see what happens.
You know what they say, Josh, a twinkie day keeps
a doctor away. That's not true. That's not true because
they're really not great for you. But I think if
you in anything in moderation you don't got nut till
the twinkies, you're probably all right. But there's Chuck's final
(22:02):
thought on twinkies, which means twinkies are done right. I'm done.
I'm done too, so we'll be done with twinkies now.
I really, actually I wanted to go eat a twinkie yeah,
we should have brought them up here, agreed. I told
you too. And you're too cheap to go buy him
for it could have expensed it, dude. Yeah, all right,
well maybe afterwards. Yeah. Okay, So Chuck Twinkies is done,
(22:25):
which means it's listener mail time. Josh, I'm gonna call
this listener mail from Amsterdam, alright, one of my favorite places,
as you know, I do know. Uh. This comes from
Robin in Portland, Oregon, and Robin was recently an Amsterdam. Actually,
the funny thing is Robin's friends Steph Stephanie wrote in
(22:45):
and told us the story and said, you know, my
friend Robin's to Chicken to write in for some reason.
And I said, you know what, tell Robin right in
and she'll make a listener mail with the story. Chuck
delivers on his promises, as she did. I was recently
an Amsterdam for a combination work holiday trip, staying in
a fabulous top floor apartment. I took a break from
work one day and wandered to the patio for some
(23:06):
fresh air, and I realized I closed a patio door
and locked myself out and was stuck. No phone, no keys,
no jacket, no way down and it was pouring down rain. Uh.
The neighbors heard my cries for help. They were able
to log into my email account, find local apartment contacts
phone number, and throw me their cell phone to make
the call. Luckily, the contact had a spare key and
(23:27):
was able to let her out in five hours after
she gets off work. So I hunkered down in a
small corner of the patio. Apparently she had a little
space like a two ft by two foot space where
she wasn't getting rained on for five hours waiting to
be rescued. And did I mention that? By stroke of luck,
I had my iPod with me and it just downloaded
several months worth of stuff you should know, silver lining,
(23:50):
exclamation all caps. Uh. In between learning all about face transplants,
exploding lakes, dejabu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching,
doing jumping jack, sweeting the plants, and taking short naps. Uh.
It was one of the best five hours spent doing
absolutely nothing. Really, do I take a step back and
just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck,
You're you both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained,
(24:13):
and sane, and thanks to our day together I was
able to flex my intellectual muscle by holding my own
on who owns the ocean debate with other international travelers.
So she says, her friends Steph turned us on to
uh turn her onto the show and thanks a lot,
keep up the good work and she has a loyal listener.
So she was stuck out on a porch and Amsterdam
(24:34):
and we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cools. What's
her name? Cool? Robin of Portlands Order Robin? All right,
thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out
there wants to share your story about an intervention this
God forcing you into a situation where you have to
listen to us, you can send us that in an
email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(25:01):
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reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
arguably the most important podcast Chuck Bryant and I will
ever record. I'm Josh Clark. This is stuff you should know,
and brother, I am jacked up me three. You're ready? Yeah,
(00:23):
I'm speaking for Jerry. So she's the Marcel Marcello our group. Yeah,
she's always wears the gloves. Hate mins? I actually don't
hate monsisistic cliche to say you hate mins. Minds are cool?
It says who that minds are cool? Yeah? I just
said it, jerk. Chuck and I have clearly been eating
far too many Twinkies in preparation of this. Yes we have, yeah, Chuck, Yes,
(00:48):
what do you know about the twinkie? Let's talk about twinkies.
Let's talk about twinkies. Everyone knows the twinkie is a
popular junk food snack cake. Yes, legendary junk food snack egg.
I would say, I would say legendary as well. I'm
glad we're doing something light like this. Just lighten Yeah,
and Chuck, how long is it twinkie. Twinkie is uh
(01:13):
four inches long? How wide is it? Twinkie? Inch and
a half? Did you know that originally it was first
invented it was made with banana cream filling. Indeed, let's
get into this, buddy. Those are just some teasers, all right.
So the twinkie was first invented in the nineteen thirties. Yes,
Continental Bakeries. Yeah, they're the vice president of Continental Bakeries,
which is already doing business as Hostess, which we know
(01:35):
and love, is the maker of Twinkies and what I
consider to be the greatest snack food of all time,
the crumb cake. Really a fan. I like the nutty bar,
the Little Debbie nutty bars. We're not we're talking host
is here, buddy? Yeah? Um, they will assassinate you. What
are those? They're like pink balls? What are those snowballs?
(01:59):
Chucks on it? Alright, So back in the vice president
of Continental Bakery he's a guy named James. What is it,
James Dooer. James Dooer not a Scotch maker. His brother
could have been. Um. He decided that the company's idle
machinery that was used to make a strawberry filled little
(02:21):
shortbread Fingers was the brand name. Um could be put
to better use. Well, the machines were idle because sea yeah, seasonal,
because strawberries only grow certain times of the year, right,
so the rest of the year that they would just
sit there. And this bug doer and he decided to
do something about it. So he came up with a
little uh, little yellow cake filled with creamy filling jammy
(02:42):
frosting if you were, that could be made year round. Um.
And apparently on his way to a marketing meeting for
this snack cake, he passed a billboard for twinkletoe shoes,
which I gotta tell you, I would never buy shoes
called twinkletoe shoes. Sure you would, you dream sailor totally would. Uh.
And that was it. He had the name right there,
(03:04):
and Twinkies were born. Yeah, there's always a cute story
behind names like that. Anytime the words twinkle and toes
are putty together, it's a cute story. Yeah. Um, so
twinkies were born, and uh, as I said, they were
made with banana cream filling, right for a while, Yeah,
until World War Two. Yeah, I didn't this. I thought
this is pretty interesting. They quit doing that because there
(03:26):
was a shortfall of bananas during the war. Yeah, I
had no idea. No, I can see rubber and and
you know, iron steel and yeah, I know, men, maybe
it's from all the banana bombs we were dropping confetti missiles. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um,
so that they replaced the banana with vanilla frosting, right,
(03:47):
and it's stuck. Yeah, it definitely stuck. Although um every
once in a while Hostess released the banana flavored Twinkie
and like the limited run, and every time they did
they noticed sales increased, which is pretty substantial. And now
it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk
about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was
(04:10):
the early twinkie. Yeah, it was in the early days, Josh.
It was made with eggs, milk, butter, as you would
expect it to be because it was cake and it
had a shelf life. The problem there was had a
shelf life of what like two days two days, so
the salesman had to rotuate the stock every two days.
And that was cool because it tasted good. But Doer said,
(04:30):
you know, this isn't I'm not making as much money
as like a chuck. Can you imagine how divine a
twinkie made with like real butter and milk and eggs
would be. It's called it's called cake. Well yeah, but
cake with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah,
that would be great. I would love for someone to
(04:50):
make and send me a real original twinkie. That would
be awesome. Yeah. I just zoned out for a second
thinking about that. I know, seriously, you just glazed over. Okay,
So these days it's actually up to thirty nine ingredients,
and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of chemicals going on. You've got like
yellow number five. There's still sugar in plenty of sugar,
(05:12):
just corn syrup of course, our old friend. And uh,
there's also bleached wheat flour and I think sugar and
flour the two biggest ingredients in it, right right. Uh.
Monoglycerides and diaglycerides have replaced the eggs, yeah, which act
as emulsifiers. Smulsifiers, they stabilize the cake batter and enhance
the flavor. Yeah, apparently for the filling they use to
(05:36):
achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much it
emulsifies the frosting. Same thing. Yeah, and there's hydrogenated shortening
instead of butter, although there is artificial butter flavor and
artificial vanilla flavor, and both of those are actually made
from petroleum. Yeah. When I read that, I was I
(05:56):
was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm
not a big I mean to eat twinkies now anymore? Well,
you know, I don't eat at all, but I do
occasionally enjoy a twinkie for sure. I haven't had a
twinkie in a long time. Did you treat yourself? And
I'm not opposed. I mean, I'll down the Ben and
Jerry's and I'm not opposed to eating fattening goodness. I know.
I think part of it is twinkies are associated with youth. Yeah,
(06:18):
i'd agree with that. I'm telling you, go back and
eat a twinkie. You'll love yourself. Well, you know, my
mom used to make um strawberry shortcake with twinkies. Nice.
Yeah it was good, monte, very nice seventies dessert too. Yeah,
you know, before the key party, load the kids up
with a twinkie strawberry shortcake. And apparently she's not the
only one to experiment with twinkies. I have a Twinkies
(06:40):
cookbook at home, actually sorts of crazy stuff in there. Yeah,
you should have brought that in. I should have. I
don't have the kind of foresight that you expect me
to have. You had the deep fried twinkie. I used
to make them and sell them at this beer festival
the last couple of years. Oh dude, I can make
a fried twinkie like you would not believe. How do
you do that? It's incredibly simple. So you have like
a vat of oil. I think peanut oil. Maybe peanut
(07:04):
all is the best. It's the worst for you, but
it tastes the best. Um. And you just take like
pancake batter or fry batter, right, um, and you make
the batter up better up, and you you just dip
the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the deep fryer.
I just throw it in there. Wo man, that sounds good.
(07:25):
Pull it out, throw some powdered sugar on there. Oh
my god. Actually you'll see. God, it's like a funnel cake.
Turbo funnel cake is what it really is. No, not
at all, not at all. It's like it's like a
funnel cake with a Twinkie inside. It's the greatest thing
you'll ever have. And I can make a good fried
oreo too. Really, huh, you never cook for me. I
(07:47):
will sometimes you'll have to come over. We'll shave some
years off our life. Seriously, Uh excuse me? Should we
talk about the the process of how they make it
in the factory. It's kind of cool. Yeah, So, Josh,
we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance
to add some sound of thags. We're in the we're
in the Twinkie back You look good in the hairnut.
But what I appreciate that what they do is they
(08:09):
have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie shape
holes upside down. Twinkies are baked up. What you would
consider upside down golden brown bottom is actually upside There's
a lot. I actually used to hear that they weren't,
in fact baked brown, and that was added color. Not true.
They are baked brown on the bottom. Indeed, Yeah, you
(08:30):
talked to the widow of James Dowert about that, didn't
you did it? Spoke to her personally. So they throw
the battery in there. It's baked at a cool three
fifty fahrenheit for nine to twelve minutes. Cool three cool,
uh the after after cool's They you know the famous
three holes in the in the bottom of the twin tie,
(08:50):
those are from the manufacturing process. They're cream filling injectors,
and they stick those three things in there and squirt
in the cream, which I wish they just scort that
in my mouth. So you just want to lay down
on the conveyor belt and go down the twinkie line.
How the stuff sported in your mouth straight from the
the try injection? Yeah, how that sounds good. It does.
(09:11):
So that's pretty much it. Man. They seal it air
tight in the package. And um, apparently that the ceiling
process is really where the preservation comes in, right, because Chuck,
if there's anything that everyone agrees on with Twinkies, it's
that they will last indefinitely. Not true, No, it isn't.
And actually there's only one ingredient in the twinkie that's
(09:33):
added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid. Right.
There are there are some preservative properties of some of
the other ingredients, um, but ultimately there's only one added ingredient.
That's meant to preserve it. And it's actually, like you said,
the air tight package that makes a Twinkie last. And
there are all sorts of urban myths about the one
(09:54):
I like this is that the they're still selling the
original run of Twinkies, which actually is clearly alive because
they would be banana flavored. Um. But the Hostess company
says that Twinkies have a shelf life twenty five days, yeah,
not twenty five years. No, no, but yeah, there there
have been some experiments that indicate to the contrary. Um.
(10:17):
There's actually these kids who very recently this last school
year out in uh what is it, Wallowa County, Oregon,
two little kids, Logan Waldron and c J. Horne. Um.
We're talking about whether or not twinkies could last indefinitely,
how long they could last? Um. And they have a
very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based on
(10:38):
this picture, is the arguably the best looking and most
stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name is
Lisa Morris. And she said, you know what, why don't
you guys do a scientific experiment. That's that's a bus driver.
I know it's quite a babe. I know, I must say,
I know. Um, she encouraged them to uh to to
(10:59):
conduct their own experience. So they put a double pack
my favorite kind of Twinkies in a Mayonnai's jar, closed
it and put it in a rock crib, which I'm
not sure what that is, but they basically buried it.
And the kids were planning on doing it until they
were eighteen, but they just you know, they're like nine exactly.
(11:19):
But she kept encouraging them to wait at least until
the end of the school year, and they did so.
Nine months later, they popped it open, eight the twinkies,
one each. They both said they were fine. One kid
said he got a belly ache from it. The other
kid said he was fine. So they are now encouraging
teachers around the country science teachers they conduct similar experiments.
But yeah, so as far as these two are concerned,
(11:42):
a Twinkie shelf life is at least nine months greater days. Yeah, well,
I know you just mentioned the double pack. I know
you like the double pack because there's two of them. No,
because of the little cardboard in there, and you can
scrape the little uh kakey goodness off the cardboard and
eat it. I just lick it off the car board.
It's like the cheese paper and a on a cheeseburger.
(12:04):
Do you really eat all that stuff? Oh? Dude, who
doesn't take the paper from a McDonald's cheeseburger and scrape
the cheese off of it and eat it? People who
want to live? Shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pal,
Twinky Man, Twinky the Kid, let's talk about Twinkie the Kid.
I just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had
(12:25):
a Twinky the Kid t shirt when I was those
It was awesome. I wish you still had it. Yeah,
I'm sure they're still out there. Yeah, I wonder what
why Twinkie the Kid? It's famous. Uh if you've never
seen it, and I'm sure everyone has, it was a
cowboy motif lasso on a hat and boots. And I
saw a dude online today that had a Twinky the
Kid tattoo. That's a pretty cool tattoo, my friend. Yeah,
(12:48):
that definitely beats taz or a dolphin or a turtle,
sunburst barbed wire around your arm. Yeah, so Twinkie the Kid,
cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember seeing twink
of the Kid ads in between acts of thunder, the
barbarian and hanker for a hunk of cheese. Remember that,
(13:10):
what was that house rock? Now was like the nutrition people? Yeah, exactly,
I got a hanker for a hunk of pocket full
of something. Yeah, because hunk of cheese is really healthy
for you. That was clearly the dairy Association. So, Chuck,
let's talk about twinkies and pop culture. Yeah, this is
good stuff. Well, no, not pop culture, real culture history. Yeah,
(13:33):
my friend, have you heard of Twinkie Gate? Yeah, go
ahead and break that one down. That's good. So there
was a guy who was seventy one back in five
was running for a place on the Minneapolis City Council.
His name was George bel Air, and he was actually
indicted for bribery because at a I guess a candidate
for him. He was the lone candidate for it. I
(13:55):
guess it was. He hosted it, he provided, he he
provided coffee, kool Aid and twinkies for these senior groups
that were there, um, and he was indicted for bribery
trying to constituency. They didn't call it kool aid Gate, no,
And I was thinking about that too there. I think
(14:17):
kool Aid had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah,
will forever be enshrined within about drinking the kool aid. Um,
that's an Alexicon. Now drink the kool aid. Definitely, It's
got its own thing. Twinkies are much more versatile, you know. Um,
(14:37):
it's such an ironic twist to crime. You know, but
that's not the only crime that they've been associated with. Well,
can I cover this one please? In the nine Dan
White of San Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk.
It was was he a city councilman. He was and
a and a supervisor and the first, yeah supervisor, I
(15:00):
first openly homosexual public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk.
And the mayor also got capped. Mayor also got capped,
and Dan White is who did the deed. And the
famous twinkie defense was used in his case because they
said he was under a severe depression at the time
and as evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically
(15:22):
was wolfing down twinkies and junk food. Junk food. Apparently
twinkies was mentioned. It does show up in the in
the court transcripts, but it was one witness who used it.
In passing and actually ding Dong's and ho Hoes were
mentioned way more. But yeah, the guy was apparently um
homicidal depression brought on by a poor diet, and it
(15:45):
actually worked. Rather than first this is premeditated murder, he
got manslaughter and eight years that was that, yep, and
that the media ran with it in the twinkie defense.
Speak you still here, But again, why not the ding
dong defense. It's even funnier the ho ho defense. Sure
that that would be confused with Santa Claus probably you
know why, because twinkies are an American icon, me and
(16:08):
you and former President Bill the Lady Killer Clinton. Really yeah,
he actually selected a Twinkie to be placed in the
Millennium Time Capsule in alongside the complete works of Louis Armstrong.
It works at William Faulkner the state flag of Hawaii.
There's a Twinkie in there too. So in a hundred
years people will really be able to find out just
(16:29):
how long the shelf life is for twcase, how about
half a twinkie that even at perfect Yeah, you've got
the thumb out your teeth. Uh So that is the
twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mel that was the millennium capsule,
So we've moved millennium falcon. Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh,
(16:49):
should we talk about the T W I and K
I E S Project? I can't wait. Pretty cool he's
got and this is university, right, yeah, Rice University. It's
kind of a while ago. These students, as college students,
are so fun. It was called the test with inorganic
noxious cakes with a K in extreme situations, which spells
(17:11):
out twinkies. And let's let's go over a couple of
things that they did with twinkies. You tell them yours first, Okay,
let me. I want to do the water test. Uh.
What they wanted to do was, um, see what happened
when you put it twinkie in water? Straightforward enough, let's
sit there, and they said this and this is on
their website. As soon as the twinkie was placed in
the water, it swelled to approximately twice its normal size.
(17:34):
A quick tactile observation indicated that the twinkie immediately began
to lose its structural integrity. The color of the twinkie
paled to an off white color, while the water below
the twinkie turned a dark yellow brown, while the water
above the twinkie remained clear, which is interesting, and they
showed pictures. So basically they left it in there for
forty eight hours. They said the creamy filling somehow oozed
(17:56):
out of the center and collected on the surface of
the water and basically it turned into a lump of
goo by the end of it. So that was the conclusion.
The conclusion, Actually, you don't have the observation. I think
the observation was it turned into a lumpy goo of
mess in the water. You got my other favorite one
(18:17):
second favorite dropping off the building. Did you print that out? No?
You do that one? I got another one? Okay, Yeah.
They did the gravity test on two twinkies get to
find out whether or not twinkies are subject to gravity.
I think they would float up when then been cool.
So they released twinkies off the sixth floor and I
like the picture of the twinkie circle and drop, and
(18:38):
they said that upon impact there was a loud splut sound,
a small crack opened on one side of the twinkie.
There was no noticeable change in the control. So they
dropped the twinkie again. The same split sound was heard.
Then they dropped the same twinkie. Yeah, and this is
that love this line. The fissure in the side of
the twinkie wide and again no noticeable change. And basically
(19:01):
the twinkie and the control twinkie didn't really completely split
up in it, just kind of some of the stuff
oozed out. But they are affected by gravity. I did
have the conclusion in this week, however, the reaction on
impact is much smaller than expected, and they maintain maintain
a good deal of structural integrity from such a lofty fall. Yeah.
Six stories yea. My favorite actually, um was that they
(19:24):
wanted to find out whether twinkies were sentient or not,
and they decided to run this test last because they
had killed a lot of twinkies, as they put it,
and they didn't want to know that they were sentient
while they were dropping him off six you know story buildings.
So they actually administered the Turing test, which is normally
used to test whether or not a computer has developed
(19:45):
an artificial intelligence. Right, if you put a person in
a computer in another room or whatever, and you direct
questions to both of them simultaneously and both answer. If
you can't tell the difference, then the computer has developed
artificial intelligence. So they conducted a turn test or turn
sorry test on a sophomore at the college and a twinkie,
(20:08):
and they put them behind a sheet you couldn't see
who is who, and they asked certain questions. Um, like
they asked in the students. Yes, so question one was
what would you describe as the purpose of your existence?
And uh, subject B, which was the guy. Uh the
answer was to woo women and subject A in parentheses
(20:31):
no answer. And it just kind of goes on like that, like, um,
they wanted to know how the both of them felt
about their mother. Um. They did some free association, like
the word health prompted the answer sex for free association
from subject B. Um, the the word spam prompted no
answer from subject A, and so on. So they determined
(20:54):
that twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do
not have intelligence. Is a relief? Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah?
As a vegetarian, I think, or a vegan, you would
have to stop eating twinkies. Oh I'm not a vegan, No,
of course not. Okay, Yeah, I am so chuck. Most
twinkies ever eaten by a person? You want to guess
who it is? Uh? Jerry our producer. She's close. Okay,
(21:19):
she's very close. Um. Actually, there is a guy who
is eighty nine, and I believe he lives in Indiana,
and his name is Lewis Browning. He's been eating a
Twinkie a day since nineteen. He's up the twenty thousand
wow dwarfed by the creator of the Twinkie, James Dewart.
He lived to be eighty eight and he ate an
(21:41):
estimated forty thousand twinkies in his lifetime. Not bad, not
bad at all. So it hats off to both of
those men. And I actually I was thinking maybe I
should start eating a twinkie a day and see what happens.
You know what they say, Josh, a twinkie day keeps
a doctor away. That's not true. That's not true because
they're really not great for you. But I think if
you in anything in moderation you don't got nut till
the twinkies, you're probably all right. But there's Chuck's final
(22:02):
thought on twinkies, which means twinkies are done right. I'm done.
I'm done too, so we'll be done with twinkies now.
I really, actually I wanted to go eat a twinkie yeah,
we should have brought them up here, agreed. I told
you too. And you're too cheap to go buy him
for it could have expensed it, dude. Yeah, all right,
well maybe afterwards. Yeah. Okay, So Chuck Twinkies is done,
(22:25):
which means it's listener mail time. Josh, I'm gonna call
this listener mail from Amsterdam, alright, one of my favorite places,
as you know, I do know. Uh. This comes from
Robin in Portland, Oregon, and Robin was recently an Amsterdam. Actually,
the funny thing is Robin's friends Steph Stephanie wrote in
(22:45):
and told us the story and said, you know, my
friend Robin's to Chicken to write in for some reason.
And I said, you know what, tell Robin right in
and she'll make a listener mail with the story. Chuck
delivers on his promises, as she did. I was recently
an Amsterdam for a combination work holiday trip, staying in
a fabulous top floor apartment. I took a break from
work one day and wandered to the patio for some
(23:06):
fresh air, and I realized I closed a patio door
and locked myself out and was stuck. No phone, no keys,
no jacket, no way down and it was pouring down rain. Uh.
The neighbors heard my cries for help. They were able
to log into my email account, find local apartment contacts
phone number, and throw me their cell phone to make
the call. Luckily, the contact had a spare key and
(23:27):
was able to let her out in five hours after
she gets off work. So I hunkered down in a
small corner of the patio. Apparently she had a little
space like a two ft by two foot space where
she wasn't getting rained on for five hours waiting to
be rescued. And did I mention that? By stroke of luck,
I had my iPod with me and it just downloaded
several months worth of stuff you should know, silver lining,
(23:50):
exclamation all caps. Uh. In between learning all about face transplants,
exploding lakes, dejabu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching,
doing jumping jack, sweeting the plants, and taking short naps. Uh.
It was one of the best five hours spent doing
absolutely nothing. Really, do I take a step back and
just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck,
You're you both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained,
(24:13):
and sane, and thanks to our day together I was
able to flex my intellectual muscle by holding my own
on who owns the ocean debate with other international travelers.
So she says, her friends Steph turned us on to
uh turn her onto the show and thanks a lot,
keep up the good work and she has a loyal listener.
So she was stuck out on a porch and Amsterdam
(24:34):
and we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cools. What's
her name? Cool? Robin of Portlands Order Robin? All right,
thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out
there wants to share your story about an intervention this
God forcing you into a situation where you have to
listen to us, you can send us that in an
email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(25:01):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
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