Stopped by the library today and picked up this book. I haven’t read it yet but I wanted to share the summary on the back:

Did you know that…?

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 million pounds of cornstarch that’s manufactured annually goes into food like Twinkies. Two-thirds is used to make paper, cardboard, and packaging “eanuts.”

When cooked, cotton cellulose is transformed into a soft goo, perfect for lending a slippery sensation to the filling in snake cakes--and rocket fuel.

Phosphorus, one of the seven elements necessary for life, is also what puts the glow in tracer bullets and causes artillery shells to explode.


Twinkies, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger
“My journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats.”