Compass Point 1:

De-Junking and Re-Balancing

Part A: Vetting the baseline Twinkies Ingredients list

Taking the Twinkies Ingredients label and expanding it fully, let us apply the Whole Foods Ban criteria (WFM-banned), and my own dislikes (BCB-nope) and see what’s left:

• Calcium Caseinate
• Calcium Sulfate
• Cellulose Gum
• Corn dextrin
• Corn Flour
• Corn Starch
• Dextrose
• Diglycerides - cannot be lactylated, acetylated or other exotic esters
• Eggs, Whole
• FD&C Red 40 dye   
• FD&C Yellow 5 dye   
• Flavors, Artificial
• Flavors, Natural
• Glucose
• High Fructose Corn Syrup   
• Modified Corn Starch
• Monocalcium Phosphate (in Baking Powder)
• Monoglycerides - cannot be lactylated, acetylated or other exotic esters
• Polysorbate 60 (Whole Foods allows this in cosmetics etc., but should they really okay it in foods?)
• Salt
• Shortening, Animal, partially hydrogenated (Beef Fat)   
• Shortening, Vegetable, partially hydrogenated (Soybean, Cottonseed and/or Canola Oil)   
• Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (in Baking Powder)
• Sodium Bicarbonate (in Baking Powder)
• Sodium Caseinate
• Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate
• Sorbic Acid
• Soy Flour   
• Soy Lecithin   
• Soy Protein Isolate
• Sugar
• Sweet Dairy Whey
• Wheat flour, Bleached & enriched
• 6.4 ppm thiamin (added to wheat flour)
• 4.0 ppm riboflavin (added to wheat flour)
• 53 ppm niacin (added to wheat flour)
• 1.5 ppm folic acid (added to wheat flour)
• 44 ppm iron (added to wheat flour)
• 2116 ppm (maximum) calcium; optional (as monocalcium phosphate, added to wheat flour)

Jeepers, not much left, is there? We must recall that those additives and treatments were put in place gradually over time to displace real food for the sake of factory baking and retail realities, as commonly and unquestioningly understood.

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Part B: Fats : Protein : Carbs : Fiber : RS

Fats, proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, and resistant starches are generally acknowledged as the major macronutrients needing right-sizing and balancing for best energy and overall health. The “optimal” amounts and proportions of each depend on what you’re after and what your body needs hour-by-hour, day-by-day.

The micronutrients are just as important—vitamins, minerals, and a huge class of substances from plant-based foods, as well as now-important ones cooked up by microbes in your gut; more on these little guys later.

Of course there’s also water, clean air, truth, love, and beauty, but those are beyond the scope of a Twinkies discussion.

A typical macronutrient allowance for our (would-be) active guy Workout Bob, wishing to reduce flab and start building muscle, would be as follows (based on an ambitious 1800kcal “reducing” diet):

45:180:170:38 fats:protein:carbs:fiber (weights in grams)

However, the beneficial microbes in Bob’s gut need to be fed too, which keeps them happy and provides benefits to their host. Keeping things moving through Bob’s pipes, attacking disease microbes, brewing up nutrients, eating indigestible carbohydrates including resistant starches, and very importantly kicking out butyric acid. This a substance that’s been known for two centuries, but has been getting lot of attention of late because of its many now-known effects on absorption of nutrients and health of intestinal tissue.

Long story short, it is now recommended that, all else equal, Bob feed his gut bugs better by replacing up to 5% of daily carbs intake with resistant starch (RS); in fact, more than 5% extra RS daily is not necessarily better. So the new allowance becomes:

45:180:161:38:9 fats:protein:carbs:fiber:RS (weights in grams)

If Workout Bob wanted to allow himself a two-pack of Twinkies per day and still be okay with it, scaling down to 10% of his daily allotment per pair would suggest this macronutrient makeup of the NOT-winkie (per cake):

• 2.2g fats
• 9.0g protein
• 8.0g carbs
• 2.0g fiber, soluble + insoluble 1:1
• 0.5g resistant starches

Compare this with the Nutrition Facts for Twinkies (per cake):

• 4.5g fats
• 1.0g protein
• 27.0g carbs
• 0.0g fiber (assumed)
• 0.0g resistant starches (assumed)

Hmmm... Twinkies have twice the fats, almost no protein, and 3½ times the carbs. There is no way Workout Bob could down a pair of these without short-circuiting his regimen, except maybe just before bed so he could sleep through the hypoglycemic crash. But bedtime Twinkies--? I dunno...

Yes, yes, other foods could be scaled and proportioned to work classic Twinkies into a diet that provided the net 45:180:161:38:9 amounts... hypothetically. But Workout Bob and 99% of everybody else can’t afford a personal dietician to work it out, and 90% of the remaining 1% would not bother anyway. Maybe there’s an app for that...

Welp, that’s the first step taken. The baseline “ideal” macronutrient composition of the NOT-winkie has been laid down: as-is, it would almost certainly be bulky and unappetizing, chewy and gross. Inevitable and necessary deviations will ensue.

Coming up:
Compass Point 2: Additive-Free Additives I: Emulsifiers

Beekeeping for Poets

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