Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Stuff You Should Know Saturday selects Mr Chuck here, Charles W. Chuck Bryant one half maybe one third of Stuff you Should Know, It depends on the day. I'm gonna go this week with how Twinkies Work from July nine, two nine. This was a fun one. I like my uh or rather our pop culture editions. I like our food episodes, and it all kind of came together with Twinkies, that magical little a little little snack that no one quite understands and knows what it really is. Is it cake? It's cakey? Is it creamy? It's creamy? But what is it really? Where did they come from? Is it true that twinkie will last for a thousand years? We get the answers to all this and how Twinkies work right now. 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, I'm speaking for Jerry. So she's the Marcel Marcel of our group. Yeah, she's she's always wears the white gloves. I hate mimes. I actually don't hate moms. It's just a cliche to say you hate mimes. Mimes are cool. It says who that mins 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, 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 cake. I would say, I would say ten day as well. I'm glad we're doing something light like this. Yeah, just lighting sponge. Yeah, yeah, Chuck. How long is it twinkie? Twinkie is uh 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. Okay, 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 and love, is the maker of Twinkies and what I consider to be the greatest snack food of all time, the crumb cake. Oh really, you 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? Chuck? 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 shortbread fingers was the brand name UM could be put to better use. Well, the machines were idle because seas, 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 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 twinkle toe shoes. Sure you would, you dream sailor totally. Uh. And that was it. He had the name right there, and twinkies were born. Yeah, there's always a cute story behind names like that. Anytime the words twinkle and toes are put 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 was pretty interesting. They quit doing that because there 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, 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 substanti toll. And now it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was 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, right, 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 rotate the stock every two days. And that was cool because they tasted good. But Doer said, you know this isn't I'm not making as much money as I could, 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 take with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah, that would be great. I would love for someone to 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 the nine ingredients, and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately, there's a lot of chemicals going on there. You've got like yellow number five. There's still sugar in it, plenty of sugar, just corn syrup of course, our old friend. And uh, there's also bleached wheat flour. 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 achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much It emosifies 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 was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm not a big I mean, do 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, 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 a good move, 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 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 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 uh you you just dip the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the deep fryer. I just throw it in there. Wow, man, that sounds good. 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 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. M h. Yeah, so, Josh, we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance to add some sound things. Okay, we're in the we're in the Twinkie fact you look good in the hairnet. By the way, I appreciate that. What they do is they have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie shape molds upside down. Twinkies are baked up what you would consider upside down. The golden brown bottom is actually upside it's brown. 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 talked to the widow of James dowert about that. It didn't you did that, 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. Uh. The after after cools, they you know the famous three holes in the in the bottom of the twinkie. Those are from the manufacturing process. They're cream filling injectors. Yeah, 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, have the stuff sported in your mouth straight from the the try injection. Yeah, how that sounds good, does So that's pretty much it. Man. They seal it air tied in the package, and um, apparently 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 added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid right there. 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 I like best is that they're still selling the original run of Twinkies, which actually is is clearly a lie because they would be banana flavored. Um. But the Hostess Company says that twinkies have a shelf life of twenty five days. Yeah, not twenty five years, no, say no, but yeah, there there have been some experiments that indicate the contrary. Um. 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 in definitely how long they could last? Um. And they have a very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based on this picture, is the arguably the best looking and most stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name is Lisa Morrise. 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 conduct their own experiments. So they put a double pack my favorite kind of Twinkies in a mayonnaise 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. But she kept encouraging him and 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 kids said he was fine. So they are now encouraging teachers around the country science teachers to conduct similar experiments. But yeah, so as far as these two are concerned, a twinkie shelf life is at least nine months greater than days. Yeah, well, I know you just mentioned the double pack. I know. I 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 cakey goodness off the cardboard and eat it. I just lick it off the cardboard. It's like the cheese paper and a on a cheeseburger. 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? Ye, shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pow Twinky Man, Twinky the Kid. Let's talk about Twinkie the Kid. I just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had a Twinky the Kid T shirt when I was one of those. It was awesome. I wish I still had it. Yeah, I'm sure there's 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, also 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, that definitely beats tazz or a dolphin or a turtle, sunburst barbed wire around your arm night. Yeah, so Twinkie the Kid. Cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember seeing Twinky the Kid ads in between acts of thunder the barbarian right in hanker for a hunk of cheese. Remember that? What was that house rock? H No, it was like, yeah, 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 they're not pop culture, real culture. Yeah his Yeah, 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 Bellair, and he was actually indicted for bribery because at a I guess a candidate for him. He was the lone candidate for it. I 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 bribe constituency. They didn't call it kool Aid Gate, no, And I was thinking about that too there. I think kool Aid had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah, we'll forever be enshrined with I mean a drinking the kool aib um that's in Alexicon now, drink the kool Aid. Definitely, it's got it's own thing. Sure, twinkies are much more versatile. You know. Um, 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 nineteen seventy nine, Dan White UH of San Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk, who was was he a city councilman? He was and a and a supervisor and the first, yeah, supervisor, the first openly homosexual public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk. And the mayor also got capped too. 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 severe depression at the time and as evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically 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 the impassing and I 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 actually worked. Rather than first this is premeditated murder. He got manslaughter and eight years that was that, and that the media ran with it in the twinkie defense. Speak you still here it 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 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 that 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 how long the shelf life is for twin case, how about half a twink That was my Clinton that even though it was a little yeah you got the thumb out your teeth. Uh. So that is the twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mill that was the Millennium capsule. Oh yeah, we've moved Millennium falcon. Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh should we talk about the t w I n k I E S Project? I can't wait? Pretty cool these got and this is very right. Yeah, Rice University. It was 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 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's swelled to a extimately twice it's normal size. 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 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 water inclusion the conclusion. Actually, I 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, my 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 or 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 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 I love this line. The fissure in the side of the twinkie widened again, no noticeable change, and basically the twinkie and the control Twinkie didn't really completely split upen It just kind of some of the stuff oozed out. But they are affected by gravity. I did have the conclusion in this one, 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, Yeah it's not bad. And my favorite actually um was that they 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 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 turning sorry test on a sophomore at the college and a Twinkie, and they put them behind a sheet you couldn't see who's who, and they asked certain questions. Um, like they asked the twinkie 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 wou women and subject A in parentheses 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 that twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do not have intelligence. That is a relief. Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah? 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, you're beefeater, Yeah, I am definite, So chuck. Most twinkies ever eaten by a person? You want to guess who it is? Uh, Jerry our producer, She's close. Okay, 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 day since nineteen. He's up the twenty thousand wow dwarfed by the creator of the twinkie, James Stewart. Oh really, he lived to be eighty eight and he ate an estimated forty thousand twinkies in his life. While 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 twinki day keeps a doctor away. That's not true. It's not true because they're really not great for you. But I think if you in anything in moderation, you don't go nuts with the twinkies, you're probably all right. But there's Chuck's final thought on twinkies, which means twinkies are done right. I'm done. Okay, 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 some up here, agreed. I told you too. And you're too cheap to go buy him for us. I could have expensed it too. Yeah, all right, well maybe afterwards. Okay, So Chuck Twinkies is done, 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. 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 and told us the story and said, you know, my friend Robin's too 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 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 wanted to the patio for some 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 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 mentioned 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, acclamation, all caps uh. In between learning all about face transplants, exploding lakes, DejaVu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching, doing jumping Jack's, weeding the plants, and taking short naps. Uh. It was one of the best five hours spent doing absolutely nothing. Rarely do I take a step back and just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck your You both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained, insane, 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 stuff 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 and we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cool. Thanks what's her name but cool? Robin of Portlands or Robin all right, Thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out there wants to share your story about an interventionist 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. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house, stuff works dot com on pitch

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Stuff You Should Know Saturday selects Mr Chuck here, Charles W. Chuck Bryant one half maybe one third of Stuff you Should Know, It depends on the day. I'm gonna go this week with how Twinkies Work from July nine, two nine. This was a fun one. I like my uh or rather our pop culture editions. I like our food episodes, and it all kind of came together with Twinkies, that magical little a little little snack that no one quite understands and knows what it really is. Is it cake? It's cakey? Is it creamy? It's creamy? But what is it really? Where did they come from? Is it true that twinkie will last for a thousand years? We get the answers to all this and how Twinkies work right now. 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, I'm speaking for Jerry. So she's the Marcel Marcel of our group. Yeah, she's she's always wears the white gloves. I hate mimes. I actually don't hate moms. It's just a cliche to say you hate mimes. Mimes are cool. It says who that mins 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, 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 cake. I would say, I would say ten day as well. I'm glad we're doing something light like this. Yeah, just lighting sponge. Yeah, yeah, Chuck. How long is it twinkie? Twinkie is uh 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. Okay, 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 and love, is the maker of Twinkies and what I consider to be the greatest snack food of all time, the crumb cake. Oh really, you 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? Chuck? 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 shortbread fingers was the brand name UM could be put to better use. Well, the machines were idle because seas, 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 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 twinkle toe shoes. Sure you would, you dream sailor totally. Uh. And that was it. He had the name right there, and twinkies were born. Yeah, there's always a cute story behind names like that. Anytime the words twinkle and toes are put 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 was pretty interesting. They quit doing that because there 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, 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 substanti toll. And now it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was 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, right, 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 rotate the stock every two days. And that was cool because they tasted good. But Doer said, you know this isn't I'm not making as much money as I could, 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 take with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah, that would be great. I would love for someone to 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 the nine ingredients, and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately, there's a lot of chemicals going on there. You've got like yellow number five. There's still sugar in it, plenty of sugar, just corn syrup of course, our old friend. And uh, there's also bleached wheat flour. 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 achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much It emosifies 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 was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm not a big I mean, do 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, 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 a good move, 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 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 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 uh you you just dip the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the deep fryer. I just throw it in there. Wow, man, that sounds good. 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 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. M h. Yeah, so, Josh, we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance to add some sound things. Okay, we're in the we're in the Twinkie fact you look good in the hairnet. By the way, I appreciate that. What they do is they have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie shape molds upside down. Twinkies are baked up what you would consider upside down. The golden brown bottom is actually upside it's brown. 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 talked to the widow of James dowert about that. It didn't you did that, 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. Uh. The after after cools, they you know the famous three holes in the in the bottom of the twinkie. Those are from the manufacturing process. They're cream filling injectors. Yeah, 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, have the stuff sported in your mouth straight from the the try injection. Yeah, how that sounds good, does So that's pretty much it. Man. They seal it air tied in the package, and um, apparently 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 added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid right there. 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 I like best is that they're still selling the original run of Twinkies, which actually is is clearly a lie because they would be banana flavored. Um. But the Hostess Company says that twinkies have a shelf life of twenty five days. Yeah, not twenty five years, no, say no, but yeah, there there have been some experiments that indicate the contrary. Um. 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 in definitely how long they could last? Um. And they have a very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based on this picture, is the arguably the best looking and most stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name is Lisa Morrise. 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 conduct their own experiments. So they put a double pack my favorite kind of Twinkies in a mayonnaise 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. But she kept encouraging him and 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 kids said he was fine. So they are now encouraging teachers around the country science teachers to conduct similar experiments. But yeah, so as far as these two are concerned, a twinkie shelf life is at least nine months greater than days. Yeah, well, I know you just mentioned the double pack. I know. I 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 cakey goodness off the cardboard and eat it. I just lick it off the cardboard. It's like the cheese paper and a on a cheeseburger. 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? Ye, shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pow Twinky Man, Twinky the Kid. Let's talk about Twinkie the Kid. I just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had a Twinky the Kid T shirt when I was one of those. It was awesome. I wish I still had it. Yeah, I'm sure there's 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, also 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, that definitely beats tazz or a dolphin or a turtle, sunburst barbed wire around your arm night. Yeah, so Twinkie the Kid. Cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember seeing Twinky the Kid ads in between acts of thunder the barbarian right in hanker for a hunk of cheese. Remember that? What was that house rock? H No, it was like, yeah, 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 they're not pop culture, real culture. Yeah his Yeah, 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 Bellair, and he was actually indicted for bribery because at a I guess a candidate for him. He was the lone candidate for it. I 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 bribe constituency. They didn't call it kool Aid Gate, no, And I was thinking about that too there. I think kool Aid had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah, we'll forever be enshrined with I mean a drinking the kool aib um that's in Alexicon now, drink the kool Aid. Definitely, it's got it's own thing. Sure, twinkies are much more versatile. You know. Um, 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 nineteen seventy nine, Dan White UH of San Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk, who was was he a city councilman? He was and a and a supervisor and the first, yeah, supervisor, the first openly homosexual public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk. And the mayor also got capped too. 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 severe depression at the time and as evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically 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 the impassing and I 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 actually worked. Rather than first this is premeditated murder. He got manslaughter and eight years that was that, and that the media ran with it in the twinkie defense. Speak you still here it 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 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 that 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 how long the shelf life is for twin case, how about half a twink That was my Clinton that even though it was a little yeah you got the thumb out your teeth. Uh. So that is the twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mill that was the Millennium capsule. Oh yeah, we've moved Millennium falcon. Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh should we talk about the t w I n k I E S Project? I can't wait? Pretty cool these got and this is very right. Yeah, Rice University. It was 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 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's swelled to a extimately twice it's normal size. 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 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 water inclusion the conclusion. Actually, I 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, my 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 or 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 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 I love this line. The fissure in the side of the twinkie widened again, no noticeable change, and basically the twinkie and the control Twinkie didn't really completely split upen It just kind of some of the stuff oozed out. But they are affected by gravity. I did have the conclusion in this one, 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, Yeah it's not bad. And my favorite actually um was that they 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 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 turning sorry test on a sophomore at the college and a Twinkie, and they put them behind a sheet you couldn't see who's who, and they asked certain questions. Um, like they asked the twinkie 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 wou women and subject A in parentheses 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 that twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do not have intelligence. That is a relief. Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah? 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, you're beefeater, Yeah, I am definite, So chuck. Most twinkies ever eaten by a person? You want to guess who it is? Uh, Jerry our producer, She's close. Okay, 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 day since nineteen. He's up the twenty thousand wow dwarfed by the creator of the twinkie, James Stewart. Oh really, he lived to be eighty eight and he ate an estimated forty thousand twinkies in his life. While 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 twinki day keeps a doctor away. That's not true. It's not true because they're really not great for you. But I think if you in anything in moderation, you don't go nuts with the twinkies, you're probably all right. But there's Chuck's final thought on twinkies, which means twinkies are done right. I'm done. Okay, 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 some up here, agreed. I told you too. And you're too cheap to go buy him for us. I could have expensed it too. Yeah, all right, well maybe afterwards. Okay, So Chuck Twinkies is done, 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. 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 and told us the story and said, you know, my friend Robin's too 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 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 wanted to the patio for some 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 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 mentioned 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, acclamation, all caps uh. In between learning all about face transplants, exploding lakes, DejaVu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching, doing jumping Jack's, weeding the plants, and taking short naps. Uh. It was one of the best five hours spent doing absolutely nothing. Rarely do I take a step back and just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck your You both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained, insane, 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 stuff 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 and we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cool. Thanks what's her name but cool? Robin of Portlands or Robin all right, Thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out there wants to share your story about an interventionist 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. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the house, stuff works dot com on pitch