Great transcript on CNN
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GUPTA (voice over): With more than 500 million sold every year, chances are pretty good you've tasted a Twinkie, but have you ever wondered, what's in one?
We asked Christopher Kimball, host of "America's Test Kitchen" to deconstruct the Twinkie for us.
CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL, "AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN": The Twinkie is one of the finest examples of modern engineering and here's why. It started out in 1930 as a basic sponge cake with the basic ingredients, you know, milk, butter, eggs, et cetera. And they filled it with cream and it lasted well maybe a couple days, three days in the market. Hence the problem, now how do you create something that's going to be shelf stable. It's not going to change over time.
GUPTA: To do that, Hostess replaced the egg yolks with lecithin.
KIMBALL: It's an emulsifier like egg yolk, which means it takes lots of disparate ingredients and sort of lets them blend together.
GUPTA: Cellulose gum replaces fat.
KIMBALL: It brings in moisture, holds moisture and gives you that mouth feel you get from fat.
GUPTA: Artificial colors take the place of natural ones.
KIMBALL: And those colors actually come from, oddly enough, the petrochemical industry, from benzene and aniline and other chemicals, which in quantity is actually poisonous, but the small quantities used here, the FDA has approved.
GUPTA: In response, Interstate Bakeries, makers of Hostess products, says the core ingredients have been the same for decades -- flour, sugar, water. Adding that deconstructing the Twinkie is like trying to deconstruct the universe. Some people look at the sky and think it's beautiful, others, try to count the stars.
Urban legend would have you believe a Twinkie can last for years. Hostess says just 25 days.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
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