I had in mind to review the new book Twinkie, Deconstructed. It's fascinating, and infuriating, but just now I was interrupted...

One of our weather reports has burst in through a hole in the front door and jumped up on my chair. Apparently, it is wet outside. Now it is wet inside, too.

Our two cats carry samples of rain, sleet or snow on their backs. On sunny days it's pollen and pine needles and fleas.

This morning we didn't need cats to see a brilliant change of mood outside. Bright blue sky in all directions. The pine trees haven't gotten the word yet -- they are still pouring last night's raindrops off glistening branches, trunks steaming in the sunshine.

Water gushes out of the forest and rushes downhill to the ocean. Ditches fill with brown runoff from the tannin-laced woods. Tide or Cheer bubbles float along the top of the streams.

Soon it will be dry enough for our aristocratic cats to venture outside. They will lie down in various spots of sunlight for a third morning nap. Wild birds will sing again; redwoods will grow their growth rings.

So, what's the deal with Twinkies? According to author Steve Ettlinger, it started when his "sweet little girl" (who at that age still thought Daddy knew everything) pitched the zinger: 'Where does pol-y-sor-bate six-tee come from, Daddy?'

"Then and there," he writes, "I decided to put an end to the mystery and find out. I had to find the polysorbate... tree or whatever it came from."

The rest of the book details Ettlinger's quest to track down to their source the strange and strangely common ingredients listed on a typical package of Twinkies. With no help from Interstate Bakeries Corporation, Ettlinger dove down mines, visited wheat fields and flour factories, found out about chlorine gas, sulfuric acid and carbon monoxide, researched Chinese riboflavin factories, and so on.

He followed sugar from beet to powder; oil from well to vanillin, soy from bean to trans fat, salt from briny wells, corn from field to high fructose syrup, butter flavor from natural gas, and so on down the list of Twinkies ingredients.

The research is thorough, and you will learn your FD&C ABC's, as in artificial colors and flavors. Still, the whole experience left me somewhat empty.

Missing is a penetrating discussion of WHY so much of our food contains ingredients so far distant from what we commonly think of as edible.

Ettlinger patiently explains that the whole thing with Twinkies and similar products is shelf life... lots of it. That is something you cannot obtain with flour, eggs, water, sugar, salt and lard. By the way, those ingredients describe the original Twinkie, pioneered in 1930 by a Vice President at Continental Bakeries looking to use idle time in his ovens.

That original Twinkie was an instant hit, made with ingredients found in most kitchens of the time. It had a shelf life of "two, maybe three days." The idea, "sponge cake with a creamy filling, was inexpensive enough to sell two for a nickel," the name inspired by "a billboard advertising 'Twinkle-Toe' shoes."

"Modern food technology," Ettlinger writes, "was Twinkies' salvation. The chemical industry worldwide exploded with innovation just after World War II... in the 1950's Twinkies' shelf life extended along with its ingredient list."

The information is good, but where is the dismay, the anger, the penetrating insight, even the health warnings? Why is so much of our food supply bereft of natural ingredients and dependent on long-distance trucking, industrial mining and sophisticated chemistry?

Those are the ingredients missing from this fascinating but flawed book. Twinkie, Deconstructed will be educational for many, but those looking for a wider understanding of our food supply will be disappointed here.

Aired Sunday March 4, 2007 at 10:55 am and Wednesday March 7, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Orders/Information:

Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Hudson Street Press, Penguin Group hardcover $23.95. ISBN 9781594630187.

From the conclusion: "All artificial ingredients, like recipes, reflect the balance of various needs (or our perceptions of needs) such as shelf life (long), taste (sweet), texture (fat), convenience (high), price (low), packaging (air-tight), nutrition (sound), and legal requirements -- and none would exist if there was no profit in it. All are needs generated by our way of life. It seems that we are, indeed, what we eat."

That's about as deep as the author's analysis goes. For a much stronger point of view, and similarly well-researched information, consider The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer (author of Animal Liberation and professor of Bioethics at Princeton University) and Jim Mason (coauthor with Singer of Animal Factories). Rodale Press hardcover $25.95. ISBN 157954889X.

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