Sunday, November 18, 2012

TWINKIE TWINKIE GOTTA HAVE A TWINKIE!

While there are multiple major horrible events taking place daily all over the world, people dying of famine, war, injustices of every type, there is one event that has gripped Americans, overshadowed the other misery happening to human beings. 

It says a great deal about American citizenry and their ability to become unusually proactive when it comes to recognizing their own survival is at stake if they don't get involved with what many perceive as the most important event in decades that will affect their lives.

Yes, I am talking panic in the streets kind of involvement, awareness that knows no bounds. Americans have learned that Hostess Brands, Inc. is going out of business and is liquidating its business after striking workers with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union didn't return to normal work levels as the company management had demanded. 

Panic in America in the past few days has resulted in a stampede of citizens who know what is essential to their lives as they cleaned out the food stores and bakeries yesterday of all Hostess products.

Do Americans really care about the 18,500 workers who will lose their jobs at Hostess? Nope, not much, this is really about the personal munchies, cravings on the level of a crack addict cut off from their supply, a heroin addict facing cold turkey. This is about life altering, diabetic causing, cardboard tasting artificial flavored little cakes of fat that people must have or they will surely die.

Screw hurricanes, wars, fiscal cliffs, rapists, murderers, politicians, homeless, poor people, climate change, or anything else that may get in their way of prioritizing this Twinky, Hostess cakes holy grail of life.
 
Good-bye Yodels.
 

Good-bye Twinkies.
 

Good-bye Ho Hos.

Good-bye Ding Dongs.
 

Good-bye Sno Balls.
 

Good-bye my favorite Wonder Bread that "helps build strong bodies 12 ways," according to the advertising slogan for the brand of soft, white bread introduced in 1921,the 12 ways referring to 12 nutrients the owners of the company thought were worth talking about.

Oh if only Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan had known the real push button issue on the minds of Americans, its not the economy, stupid, it's sugar, Twinkies, cake. 

Mitt could have used his Bain Capital Company to take over Hostess and bought the votes of fellow Americans by with the slogan "vote for me and I promise you a free carton of Twinkies and other Hostess cakes in every American's home". 

His dreams to be in the White House would have come true by buying the votes of the Twinkie junkies in scoring a mere hand full, perhaps, a box, or even a carton. 

Mitt had failed to follow his history lessons in which"Upon being informed that the citizens of France had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette, Queen of Louis XVI of France, exclaimed "let them eat cake".

Although she was eventually beheaded when the people of France revolted, no such fate would have befallen Mitt and the GOP here in a strung out America, if only he could get a do over, the poor guy, it was that easy.

Twinkie addiction is formed in early childhood by habit, as parents introduced preschool children to the sugary cakes, and it affects several generations since early childhood. It's the white flour, sugar, and marshmallow cream filling that makes people come back for more. The flavor of the sugar makes the brain light up with hormones that eventually develop into a habit, a familiarity, if not a craving to come back for more and more of it. 

See the You Tube video, Howdy Doody Hostess Twinkies Commercial 1950s. Four generations of Twinkie eaters has had this type of brand loyalty so much so that some supermarket's own brand of cakes similar to Twinkie's were left on the shelf this week at numerous supermarkets.

The flavor of the sugar makes the brain light up with hormones that eventually develop into a habit, a familiarity, an addiction. See, Myth of the 'Twinkie defense', Behind the Twinkie Defense, Truthdig, and What Is the 'Twinkie Defense'?, Legislation and Policymaking.

Want a recipe for marshmallow cream filling or a new income producer by setting up your own twinkie cake meth type home lab then try Marshmallow Cream Filling Recipes, Yummly, Cream Filling for Cupcakes, Baking and Cooking Blog, or "DIY: How to make your own Twinkies.

A lot of dentists for several generations made plenty of money as a result of children wolfing down plenty of Twinkies and changing the ratio of calcium to phosphorous in their bloodstream from eating all that sugar and white flour. 

French doctor, Serge Ahmed, of Bordeaux, has been working with rats and giving them the choice between cocaine and sugar. Guess what wins, time and again? Sugar. Sugar produces dopamine in the brain which in turn makes kids feel good for a few minutes. For some true sugar addicts, they need this to feel better. When kids and parents eat sugar, they feel good for a few minutes until the insulin surges kick in. When the happy feeling wears off, they need more. Eventually when sugar is cut out of the diet, human brains will begin to produce dopamine on their own, but who has the time to wait for that to happen. 

Most snacks such as cream-filled cakes that parents buy for themselves and their kids is high in refined sugar and simple carbohydrates. But soon withdrawal symptoms kick in. This keeps many sugar addicts trapped in their addiction to processed cakes made with white flour and sugar or even bread coated with jam and a fatty substance such as cream or butter. 

The sweet taste of sugar is more rewarding than the high of cocaine to some people. That's what makes people come back to buy and eat more foods made with sugar, especially heightened when mixed with white flour, as in a cake with a sweet filling that tastes creamy or even fatty. Some parents even give kids processed sweet foods to get them to behave or even quiet down. But the reaction often is craving and crashing.

Kids grew up eating Twinkies instead of fresh fruit. Familiarity doesn't breed contempt when it comes to sweet foods. Instead familiarity breeds habit, and habit breeds tradition to come back for more. Americans were introduced in early childhood not only to Twinkies but also to Ho-Hos and Sno-Balls. Most kids whose parents aren't nutrition and natural foods enthusiasts grew up with Twinkies. 

Many are young and some are over age 65 and grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s when processed foods dominated the TV ads, as today, a time when sugary foods were advertised on children's TV shows such as the Saturday morning cartoons. The parents and grandparents passed on the Twinkie habit to their own children, and they passed on the Twinkies as soon as the kids could eat solid food, in turn to the next generation of Twinkie addicts.

By Saturday afternoon, online seller eBay was hosting more than 17,000 active listings for Twinkies. Bids and prices varied wildly." Amazingly, one seller's listing asked for $10 million for a box of 10 Twinkies. Since there were no takers by Saturday night, it didn't matter much that the seller promised to deliver the box of Twinkies in a van that displays the buyer's company logo, with $1 million to be donated in the buyer's name to a charity of the buyer's choosing. 

But what about another day, when those addicted to Twinkies so much will pay big money for their sweet fix, to satisfy the monkey on their back type of addiction for marshmallow creme.

If the federal government can bail out the banking and auto industries, why can’t it do the same for Twinkies.

Over at White House.gov, more than 350 hardworking Americans have already taken time out of all that working hard to put their name to a petition asking President Obama to nationalize the Twinkie industry and “prevent our nation from losing her sweet creamy center.”

So if you believe that Twinkies are too sweet to fail, feel free to put your name on the petition.

There's a box of Twinkies. Not just any box of Twinkies, the last box of Twinkies that anyone will enjoy in the whole universe. Believe it or not, Twinkies have an expiration date. Some day very soon, there will be none left, as time does not age these cakes well.

I am holding out hope for those afflicted that some other company sees the profit value in Twinkies (and Ho Ho’s, and maybe even Drake’s Cakes) and saves the government from having to answer years of questions about how it let the U.S. slip farther back in the international snack cake race.

In the meantime, sites like Hoard The Hostess are already documenting today’s disastrous news. You can go here and mourn, sniff, get an online high off of the photos.

The video clip below from Ghostbusters sums it all up, because in the words of the great Winston Zeddemore, “That’s one big Twinkie.”