What's in a Twinkie?

Dwight Eschliman photographically documents what goes into the chemical goodness of Twinkies in his new book, 37 Or So Ingredients. You can see a preview at his web site. On a related note: the official site for Steve Ettlinger's book Twinkie, Deconstructed.

HFCS Drinks + Their Equivalents in Junk Food

This series of photos graphically illustrates the health impact of beverages containing high fructose corn syrup. Enjoy! (via BoingBoing)

Assignment: Response #3

Due: Thursday 4/8 by 10am
Requirements: 400-500 words, 2 quotations

Write a response for your blog in which you take a position on the soda tax we discussed in class today. Explain the reasons for your position (at least two) and support your reasons with quotations from the articles in the soda tax handout or from sources you find through independent research. Cite your sources at the bottom of the post using the following format

Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Title of Publication. Date of Publication.

You must cite your sources even if they are taken from the soda tax handout. We'll be discussing MLA format next week: you may use MLA here, if you are already familiar with it.

The Invincible Happy Meal 2

Ryan Vera, who is blogging for Dr. McCormick's "Eat, Read, Write" class this semester, passed on a link to this Morgan Spurlock video in a comment on my earlier post. In the video, Spurlock tests the decomposition time of various McDonald's foods against that of a hamburger and fries purchased from a mom-and-pop restaurant. The results are startling, particularly in the case of the french fries, and may give us some insight into the use of preservatives in the fast food industry. These foods are designed to appeal to our senses of taste and smell, so it's easy to forget that they're also designed to fit the needs of industrial production, to sit in warehouses for long periods of time, and to be transported over long distances before they reach the walk-in freezers of local franchises.

You can catch a glimpse of that production process in this post about a McDonald's factory in Russia. Don't miss the McDonald's Bun Guide and Bun Troubleshooting Tool!

The Invincible Happy Meal

"The picture you're looking at above isn't of just any Happy Meal. It's a Happy Meal that's an entire year old. Yup, author Joann Bruso decided to undertake a little experiment with McDonald's most recognizable icon (besides that bizarre man-clown, that is). So she bought a Happy Meal, took out the hamburger, and plopped down in her office. For a year. This is what happened."

You can read the rest of the brief article and find a link to Bruso's web site here. You can read Bruso's "Happy Meal Blog" here, although you may have to try several times: according to the blog, "My Happy Meal posting went viral with multiple blogs and news sites picking it up. The Baby Bites’ site is having a hard time handling all the hits. We are working on this issue. If you experience difficulty on the site or do not see your comment posted, please check back."

It's worth noting that several people who commented on Bruso's post report similar (usually accidental) experiments with other processed foods. One reader tells of an open "Lunchable" that sat unchanged in her kitchen for several months. Another describes how her young daughter left an uneaten Dairy Queen ice cream cone sitting in her closet for two weeks: "I was hanging up some clothes in her room [and] I noticed a perfect looking unmelted ice cream cone." Apparently the so-called ice cream shrank slightly during that time, but there was no melting and none of the foul odor you'd expect from dairy products gone rancid.

Of course none of these are scientific experiments, but they do make me uneasy!

Food Additives

Just stumbled on this slight, but fascinating article from the Daily Mail. The article covers a 2007 report by the British Food Standards Agency's Committee on Toxicity about the health effects of food additives, particularly their effects on young children. Very useful chart, though I'd like to see the original report as the details of the research are pretty sketchy. Since this is a 2007 article, I'm sure it's been published by now.