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SYSK Selects: How Twinkies Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Stuff
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Speaker 1: You Should Know Saturday selects Mr Chuck here, Charles W.
0:08
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant one half maybe one third of Stuff you
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Speaker 1: Should Know, It depends on the day. I'm gonna go
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Speaker 1: this week with how Twinkies Work from July nine, two nine.
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Speaker 1: This was a fun one. I like my uh or
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Speaker 1: rather our pop culture editions. I like our food episodes,
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Speaker 1: and it all kind of came together with Twinkies, that
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Speaker 1: magical little a little little snack that no one quite
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Speaker 1: understands and knows what it really is. Is it cake?
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Speaker 1: It's cakey? Is it creamy? It's creamy? But what is
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Speaker 1: it really? Where did they come from? Is it true
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Speaker 1: that twinkie will last for a thousand years? We get
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Speaker 1: the answers to all this and how Twinkies work right now.
1:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
1:07
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to arguably the most important
1:12
Speaker 1: podcast Chuck Bryant and I will ever record. I'm Josh Clark.
1:15
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you Should Know, and brother, I am
1:18
Speaker 1: jacked up me three you're ready? Yeah, I'm speaking for Jerry.
1:22
Speaker 1: So she's the Marcel Marcel of our group. Yeah, she's
1:25
Speaker 1: she's always wears the white gloves. I hate mimes. I
1:29
Speaker 1: actually don't hate moms. It's just a cliche to say
1:31
Speaker 1: you hate mimes. Mimes are cool. It says who that
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Speaker 1: mins are cool? Yeah, I just said it, jerk. Chuck
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Speaker 1: and I have clearly been eating far too many twinkies
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Speaker 1: in preparation of this. Yes we have, yeah, Chuck, Yes,
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Speaker 1: what do you know about the twinkie? Let's talk about twinkies.
1:49
Speaker 1: Let's talk about twinkies. Everyone knows the twinkie is a
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Speaker 1: popular junk food snack cake. Yes, legendary junk food snack cake.
1:58
Speaker 1: I would say, I would say ten day as well.
2:01
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're doing something light like this. Yeah, just
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Speaker 1: lighting sponge. Yeah, yeah, Chuck. How long is it twinkie?
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Speaker 1: Twinkie is uh four inches long? How wide is it? Twinkie?
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Speaker 1: Inch and a half? Did you know that originally it
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Speaker 1: was first invented it was made with banana cream filling. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: let's get into this, buddy. Okay, those are just some teasers,
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Speaker 1: all right, So the twinkie was first invented in the
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. Yes, Continental Bakeries. Yeah, they're the vice president
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Speaker 1: of Continental Bakeries, which is already doing business as Hostess,
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Speaker 1: which we know and love, is the maker of Twinkies
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Speaker 1: and what I consider to be the greatest snack food
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Speaker 1: of all time, the crumb cake. Oh really, you a fan?
2:43
Speaker 1: I like the nutty bar, the little Debbie nutty bars.
2:46
Speaker 1: We're not we're talking host is here, buddy? Yeah? Um,
2:49
Speaker 1: they will assassinate you. What are those They're like pink balls?
2:54
Speaker 1: What are those snowballs? Chuck? Alright, So back in the
3:01
Speaker 1: vice president of Continental Bakery, he's a guy named James
3:05
Speaker 1: what is it, James Dooer. James Dooer not a Scotch maker.
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Speaker 1: His brother could have been. Um. He decided that the
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Speaker 1: company's idle machinery that was used to make a strawberry
3:18
Speaker 1: filled little shortbread fingers was the brand name UM could
3:23
Speaker 1: be put to better use. Well, the machines were idle
3:25
Speaker 1: because seas, yeah, seasonal, because strawberries only grow certain times
3:28
Speaker 1: of the year, right, so the rest of the year
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Speaker 1: that they would just sit there and this bug doer
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Speaker 1: and he decided to do something about it. So he
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Speaker 1: came up with a little, uh, little yellow cake filled
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Speaker 1: with creamy filling. Jammy frosting if you were that could
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Speaker 1: be made year round. Um. And apparently on his way
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Speaker 1: to a marketing meeting for this snack cake, he passed
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Speaker 1: a billboard for twinkletoe shoes, which I gotta tell you,
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Speaker 1: I would never buy shoes called twinkle toe shoes. Sure
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Speaker 1: you would, you dream sailor totally. Uh. And that was it.
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Speaker 1: He had the name right there, and twinkies were born. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: there's always a cute story behind names like that. Anytime
4:07
Speaker 1: the words twinkle and toes are put together, it's a
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Speaker 1: cute story. Yeah. Um, so twinkies were born. And uh,
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Speaker 1: as I said, they were made with banana cream filling,
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Speaker 1: right for a while. Yeah, until World War Two. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I didn't this. I thought this was pretty interesting. They
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Speaker 1: quit doing that because there was a shortfall of bananas
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Speaker 1: during the war. Yeah, I had no idea. No, I
4:30
Speaker 1: can see rubber and and you know, iron steel and yeah,
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Speaker 1: I know, men, maybe it's from all the banana bombs
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Speaker 1: we were dropping confetti missiles. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, so
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Speaker 1: that they replaced the banana with vanilla frosting, right, and
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Speaker 1: it's stuck. Yeah, it definitely stuck. Although um, every once
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Speaker 1: in a while Hostess released the banana flavored Twinkie and
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Speaker 1: like the limited run, and every time they did they
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Speaker 1: noticed sales increased, which is pretty substanti toll. And now
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Speaker 1: it's permanent as of two thousand seven. Yeah, let's talk
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Speaker 1: about the early twinkie and the pure goodness that was
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Speaker 1: the early twinkie. Yeah, it was in the early days, Josh.
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Speaker 1: It was made with eggs, milk, butter, as you would
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Speaker 1: expect it to be because it was cake, right, and
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Speaker 1: it had a shelf life. The problem there was had
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Speaker 1: a shelf life of what like two days two days,
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Speaker 1: so the salesman had to rotate the stock every two days.
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Speaker 1: And that was cool because they tasted good. But Doer said,
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Speaker 1: you know this isn't I'm not making as much money
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Speaker 1: as I could, Chuck. Can you imagine how divine a
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Speaker 1: twinkie made with like real butter and milk and eggs
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Speaker 1: would be. It's called it's called cake. Well, yeah, but
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Speaker 1: take with like real vanilla frosting and in that shape too. Yeah,
5:46
Speaker 1: that would be great. I would love for someone to
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Speaker 1: make and send me a real original twinkie. That would
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Speaker 1: be awesome. Yeah. I just zoned out for a second
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Speaker 1: thinking about that. I know, seriously, you just glazed over. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So these days it's actually up to the nine ingredients,
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Speaker 1: and most of them come out of labs, right, Yeah. Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of chemicals going on there. You've got
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Speaker 1: like yellow number five. There's still sugar in it, plenty
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Speaker 1: of sugar, just corn syrup of course, our old friend.
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Speaker 1: And uh, there's also bleached wheat flour. I think sugar
6:17
Speaker 1: and flour the two biggest ingredients in it, right right. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Monoglycerides and diaglycerides have replaced the eggs, yeah, which act
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Speaker 1: as emulsifiers. Smulsifiers, they stabilize the cake batter and enhance
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Speaker 1: the flavor. Yeah. Apparently for the filling they use to
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Speaker 1: achieve the same and polyscerbate sixty, which does much It
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Speaker 1: emosifies the frosting. Same thing. Yeah, And there's hydrogenated shortening
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Speaker 1: instead of butter, although there is artificial butter flavor and
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Speaker 1: artificial vanilla flavor, and both of those are actually made
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Speaker 1: from petroleum. Yeah. When I read that, I was I
6:55
Speaker 1: was a little taken aback, to be honest. Yeah, I'm
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Speaker 1: not a big I mean, do eat twinkies now anymore? Well,
7:00
Speaker 1: you know, I don't eat at all, but I do
7:02
Speaker 1: occasionally enjoy a twinkie, for sure. I haven't had a
7:05
Speaker 1: twinkie in a long time. Did you treat yourself? And
7:08
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed. I mean, I'll down the Ben and
7:10
Speaker 1: Jerry's and I'm not opposed to eating fattening goodness. I know.
7:13
Speaker 1: I think part of it is twinkies are associated with youth. Yeah,
7:17
Speaker 1: i'd agree with that. I'm telling you, go back and
7:19
Speaker 1: eat a twinkie. You'll love yourself. Well, you know, my
7:22
Speaker 1: mom used to make um strawberry shortcake with twinkies. Nice. Yeah,
7:26
Speaker 1: it was a good move, very nice seventies dessert too. Yeah,
7:30
Speaker 1: you know, before the key party, load the kids up
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Speaker 1: with a twinkie strawberry shortcake. And apparently she's not the
7:35
Speaker 1: only one to experiment with twinkies. I have a Twinkies
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Speaker 1: cookbook at home, actually sorts of crazy stuff in there. Yeah,
7:41
Speaker 1: you should have brought that in. I should have. I
7:43
Speaker 1: don't have the kind of foresight that you expect me
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Speaker 1: to have. You had the deep fried twinkie. I used
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Speaker 1: to make them and sell them at this beer festival
7:51
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. Oh dude, I can make
7:53
Speaker 1: a fried twinkie like you would not believe. How do
7:55
Speaker 1: you do that? It's incredibly simple. So you have like
7:58
Speaker 1: a vat of oil. I think peanut oil. Maybe peanut
8:02
Speaker 1: all is the best. It's the worst for you, but
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Speaker 1: it tastes the best. Um. And you just take like
8:07
Speaker 1: pancake batter or fry batter, right, um, and you make
8:12
Speaker 1: the batter up better up and uh you you just
8:17
Speaker 1: dip the twinkie in the batter, throw it in the
8:19
Speaker 1: deep fryer. I just throw it in there. Wow, man,
8:23
Speaker 1: that sounds good. Pull it out, throw some powdered sugar
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Speaker 1: on there. Oh my god. Actually you'll see. God, it's
8:29
Speaker 1: like a funnel cake. Turbo funnel cake is what it
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Speaker 1: really is. No, not at all, not at all. It's
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Speaker 1: like it's like a funnel cake with a twinkie inside.
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Speaker 1: It's the greatest thing you'll ever have. And I can
8:41
Speaker 1: make a good fried oreo too. Really, Huh. You never
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Speaker 1: cook for me. I will sometimes you'll have to come over.
8:47
Speaker 1: We'll shave some years off our life. Seriously, Uh, excuse me?
8:52
Speaker 1: Should we talk about the the process of how they
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Speaker 1: make it in the factory. It's kind of cool. M h. Yeah, so, Josh,
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Speaker 1: we're in the Twinkie factory. This is Jerry's big chance
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Speaker 1: to add some sound things. Okay, we're in the we're
9:33
Speaker 1: in the Twinkie fact you look good in the hairnet.
9:35
Speaker 1: By the way, I appreciate that. What they do is
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Speaker 1: they have these metal pans in the shape of Twinkie
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Speaker 1: shape molds upside down. Twinkies are baked up what you
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Speaker 1: would consider upside down. The golden brown bottom is actually
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Speaker 1: upside it's brown. There's a lot. I actually used to
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Speaker 1: hear that they weren't, in fact baked brown, and that
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Speaker 1: was added color. Not true. They are baked brown on
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Speaker 1: the bottom. Indeed. Yeah, you talked to the widow of
9:58
Speaker 1: James dowert about that. It didn't you did that, spoke
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Speaker 1: to her personally. So they throw the battery in there.
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Speaker 1: It's baked at a cool three fifty fahrenheit for nine
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Speaker 1: to twelve minutes. Cool. Uh. The after after cools, they
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Speaker 1: you know the famous three holes in the in the
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Speaker 1: bottom of the twinkie. Those are from the manufacturing process.
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Speaker 1: They're cream filling injectors. Yeah, and they stick those three
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Speaker 1: things in there and squirt in the cream, which I
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Speaker 1: wish they just scort that in my mouth. So you
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Speaker 1: just want to lay down on the conveyor belt and
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Speaker 1: go down the twinkie line, have the stuff sported in
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Speaker 1: your mouth straight from the the try injection. Yeah, how
10:37
Speaker 1: that sounds good, does So that's pretty much it. Man.
10:40
Speaker 1: They seal it air tied in the package, and um,
10:44
Speaker 1: apparently the ceiling process is really where the preservation comes in, right,
10:48
Speaker 1: because Chuck, if there's anything that everyone agrees on with Twinkies,
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Speaker 1: it's that they will last indefinitely. Not true, No, it isn't.
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Speaker 1: And actually there's only one ingredient in the twinkie that's
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Speaker 1: added specifically to preserve it, and that's sorbic acid right there.
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Speaker 1: There are there are some preservative properties of some of
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Speaker 1: the other ingredients, um, but ultimately there's only one added
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Speaker 1: ingredient that's meant to preserve it. And it's actually, like
11:15
Speaker 1: you said, the air tight package that makes a twinkie last.
11:18
Speaker 1: And there are all sorts of urban myths about the
11:21
Speaker 1: one I like best is that they're still selling the
11:24
Speaker 1: original run of Twinkies, which actually is is clearly a
11:28
Speaker 1: lie because they would be banana flavored. Um. But the
11:32
Speaker 1: Hostess Company says that twinkies have a shelf life of
11:35
Speaker 1: twenty five days. Yeah, not twenty five years, no, say no,
11:39
Speaker 1: but yeah, there there have been some experiments that indicate
11:42
Speaker 1: the contrary. Um. There's actually these kids who very recently
11:47
Speaker 1: this last school year out in uh what is it,
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Speaker 1: Wallowa County, Oregon, two little kids, Logan Waldron and c. J. Horne. Um,
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Speaker 1: we're talking about whether or not twinkies could last in
11:59
Speaker 1: definitely how long they could last? Um. And they have
12:02
Speaker 1: a very encouraging bus driver who I must say, based
12:05
Speaker 1: on this picture, is the arguably the best looking and
12:09
Speaker 1: most stylish bus driver on the planet. And her name
12:13
Speaker 1: is Lisa Morrise. And she said, you know what, why
12:15
Speaker 1: don't you guys do a scientific experiment. That's that's a
12:18
Speaker 1: bus driver. I know it's quite a babe, I know,
12:20
Speaker 1: I must say, I know. Um. She encouraged them to
12:24
Speaker 1: uh to to conduct their own experiments. So they put
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Speaker 1: a double pack my favorite kind of Twinkies in a
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Speaker 1: mayonnaise jar, closed it and put it in a rock crib,
12:35
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure what that is, but they basically
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Speaker 1: buried it. And the kids were planning on doing it
12:40
Speaker 1: until they were eighteen but they just you know, they're
12:43
Speaker 1: like nine exactly. But she kept encouraging him and to
12:48
Speaker 1: wait at least until the end of the school year,
12:50
Speaker 1: and they did so. Nine months later, they popped it open,
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Speaker 1: eight the twinkies, one each. They both said they were fine.
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Speaker 1: One kid said he got a belly ache from it.
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Speaker 1: The other kids said he was fine. So they are
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Speaker 1: now encouraging teachers around the country science teachers to conduct
13:05
Speaker 1: similar experiments. But yeah, so as far as these two
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Speaker 1: are concerned, a twinkie shelf life is at least nine
13:11
Speaker 1: months greater than days. Yeah, well, I know you just
13:15
Speaker 1: mentioned the double pack. I know. I like the double
13:17
Speaker 1: pack because there's two of them. No, because of the
13:19
Speaker 1: little cardboard in there, and you can scrape the little
13:22
Speaker 1: uh cakey goodness off the cardboard and eat it. I
13:26
Speaker 1: just lick it off the cardboard. It's like the cheese
13:28
Speaker 1: paper and a on a cheeseburger. Do you really eat
13:33
Speaker 1: all that stuff? Oh? Dude? Who doesn't take the paper
13:35
Speaker 1: from a McDonald's cheeseburger and scrape the cheese off of
13:38
Speaker 1: it and eat it? People who want to live? Ye,
13:41
Speaker 1: shut up, you've had McDonald's in your day. Pow Twinky Man,
13:46
Speaker 1: Twinky the Kid. Let's talk about Twinkie the Kid. I
13:50
Speaker 1: just totally shocked you with that. Yeah. I had a
13:52
Speaker 1: Twinky the Kid T shirt when I was one of those.
13:56
Speaker 1: It was awesome. I wish I still had it. Yeah,
13:59
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's still out there. Yeah, I wonder what
14:01
Speaker 1: why Twinkie the Kid. It's famous. Uh if you've never
14:03
Speaker 1: seen it, and I'm sure everyone has, it was a
14:05
Speaker 1: cowboy motif, also lasso on a hat and boots. And
14:10
Speaker 1: I saw a dude online today that had a Twinky
14:12
Speaker 1: the Kid tattoo. That's a pretty cool tattoo, my friend. Yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: that definitely beats tazz or a dolphin or a turtle,
14:19
Speaker 1: sunburst barbed wire around your arm night. Yeah, so Twinkie
14:24
Speaker 1: the Kid. Cool tattoo, even cooler T shirt. I remember
14:28
Speaker 1: seeing Twinky the Kid ads in between acts of thunder
14:32
Speaker 1: the barbarian right in hanker for a hunk of cheese.
14:36
Speaker 1: Remember that? What was that house rock? H No, it
14:40
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, the nutrition people, Yeah exactly, I got
14:44
Speaker 1: a hanker for a hunk of pocket full of something. Yeah,
14:47
Speaker 1: because hunk of cheese is really healthy for you. That
14:50
Speaker 1: was clearly the Dairy Association. So Chuck, let's talk about
14:54
Speaker 1: twinkies and pop culture. Yeah, this is good stuff. Well
14:57
Speaker 1: they're not pop culture, real culture. Yeah his Yeah, my friend,
15:01
Speaker 1: have you heard of Twinkie Gate? Yeah, go ahead and
15:03
Speaker 1: break that one down. That's good. So there was a
15:05
Speaker 1: guy who was seventy one back in five was running
15:09
Speaker 1: for a place on the Minneapolis City Council. His name
15:13
Speaker 1: was George Bellair, and he was actually indicted for bribery
15:18
Speaker 1: because at a I guess a candidate for him. He
15:20
Speaker 1: was the lone candidate for it. I guess it was.
15:22
Speaker 1: He hosted it, he provided, he he provided coffee, kool
15:28
Speaker 1: Aid and twinkies for these senior groups that were there. Um,
15:34
Speaker 1: and he was indicted for bribery trying to bribe constituency.
15:38
Speaker 1: They didn't call it kool Aid Gate, no, And I
15:40
Speaker 1: was thinking about that too there. I think kool Aid
15:46
Speaker 1: had its run one pop with Jonestown. Oh sure, yeah,
15:52
Speaker 1: we'll forever be enshrined with I mean a drinking the
15:55
Speaker 1: kool aib um that's in Alexicon now, drink the kool Aid. Definitely,
15:59
Speaker 1: it's got it's own thing. Sure, twinkies are much more versatile.
16:03
Speaker 1: You know. Um, it's such an ironic twist to crime,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, but that's not the only crime that they've
16:10
Speaker 1: been associated with. Well, can I cover this one please.
16:13
Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventy nine, Dan White UH of San
16:17
Speaker 1: Francisco famously shot and killed Harvey Milk, who was was
16:21
Speaker 1: he a city councilman? He was and a and a
16:24
Speaker 1: supervisor and the first, yeah, supervisor, the first openly homosexual
16:29
Speaker 1: public officeholder in the country was Harvey Milk. And the
16:32
Speaker 1: mayor also got capped too. Mayor also got capped, and
16:35
Speaker 1: Dan White is who did the deed, and the famous
16:38
Speaker 1: twinkie defense was used in his case because they said
16:42
Speaker 1: he was under severe depression at the time and as
16:46
Speaker 1: evidence they used the fact that he uncharacteristically was wolfing
16:50
Speaker 1: down Twinkies and junk food. Junk food. Apparently twinkies was mentioned.
16:55
Speaker 1: It does show up in the in the court transcripts,
16:57
Speaker 1: but it was one witness who used the impassing and
16:59
Speaker 1: I actually ding Dong's and ho hoes were mentioned way more.
17:03
Speaker 1: But yeah, the guy was apparently, um homicidal depression brought
17:09
Speaker 1: on by a poor diet and it actually worked. Rather
17:13
Speaker 1: than first this is premeditated murder. He got manslaughter and
17:17
Speaker 1: eight years that was that, and that the media ran
17:20
Speaker 1: with it in the twinkie defense. Speak you still here
17:22
Speaker 1: it again? Why not the ding dong defense? It's even
17:24
Speaker 1: funnier the ho ho defense. Sure that that would be
17:27
Speaker 1: confused with Santa Claus probably you know why, because twinkies
17:31
Speaker 1: are an American icon, me and you and former President
17:37
Speaker 1: Bill the Lady Killer Clinton. Really yeah, he actually selected
17:41
Speaker 1: a Twinkie to be placed in the Millennium time capsule
17:44
Speaker 1: in alongside the complete works of Louis Armstrong that works
17:48
Speaker 1: at William Faulkner. The state flag of Hawaii. There's a
17:52
Speaker 1: twinkie in there too, So in a hundred years people
17:54
Speaker 1: will really be able to find out just how long
17:56
Speaker 1: the shelf life is for twin case, how about half
17:59
Speaker 1: a twink That was my Clinton that even though it
18:03
Speaker 1: was a little yeah you got the thumb out your teeth. Uh.
18:07
Speaker 1: So that is the twinkie defense. And um, Harvey mill
18:10
Speaker 1: that was the Millennium capsule. Oh yeah, we've moved Millennium falcon.
18:14
Speaker 1: Thanks for thanks for coming, Chuck. Uh should we talk
18:17
Speaker 1: about the t w I n k I E S Project?
18:21
Speaker 1: I can't wait? Pretty cool these got and this is
18:24
Speaker 1: very right. Yeah, Rice University. It was kind of a
18:27
Speaker 1: while ago. These students, as college students, are so fun.
18:31
Speaker 1: It was called the test with inorganic noxious cakes with
18:35
Speaker 1: a K in extreme situations, which spells out twinkies. And
18:40
Speaker 1: let's let's go over a couple of things that they
18:41
Speaker 1: did with twinkies. You tell them yours first, Okay, let me,
18:45
Speaker 1: I want to do the water test. Uh. What they
18:48
Speaker 1: wanted to do was, um, see what happened when you
18:50
Speaker 1: put it twinkie in water? Straightforward enough, let's sit there,
18:54
Speaker 1: and they said this, and this is on their website.
18:57
Speaker 1: As soon as the twinkie was placed in the water,
18:59
Speaker 1: it's swelled to a extimately twice it's normal size. A
19:02
Speaker 1: quick tactile observation indicated that the twinkie immediately began to
19:06
Speaker 1: lose its structural integrity. The color of the twinkie paled
19:10
Speaker 1: to an off white color, while the water below the
19:12
Speaker 1: twinkie turned a dark yellow brown, while the water above
19:15
Speaker 1: the twinkie remained clear, which is interesting, and they showed pictures.
19:19
Speaker 1: So basically they left it in there for forty eight hours.
19:21
Speaker 1: They said the creamy filling somehow oozed out of the
19:24
Speaker 1: center and collected on the surface of the water, and
19:29
Speaker 1: basically it turned into a lump of goo by the
19:32
Speaker 1: end of it. So that was the water inclusion the conclusion. Actually,
19:36
Speaker 1: I don't have the observation. I think the observation was
19:39
Speaker 1: it turned into a lumpy goo of mess in the water.
19:42
Speaker 1: You got my other favorite one, my second favorite dropping
19:46
Speaker 1: off the building. Did you print that out? No? You
19:48
Speaker 1: do that one? I got another one? Okay, Yeah. They
19:51
Speaker 1: did the gravity test on two twinkies get to find
19:53
Speaker 1: out whether or not Twinkies or subject to gravity. I
19:57
Speaker 1: think they would float up when then been cool. So
19:59
Speaker 1: they released twinkies off the sixth floor and I like
20:02
Speaker 1: the picture of the twinkie circle and drop. And they
20:06
Speaker 1: said that upon impact there was a loud splut sound,
20:09
Speaker 1: a small crack opened on one side of the twinkie.
20:12
Speaker 1: There was no noticeable change in the control. So they
20:15
Speaker 1: dropped the twinkie again, the same split sound was heard.
20:18
Speaker 1: Then they dropped the same twinkie. Yeah, and this is
20:20
Speaker 1: I love this line. The fissure in the side of
20:23
Speaker 1: the twinkie widened again, no noticeable change, and basically the
20:29
Speaker 1: twinkie and the control Twinkie didn't really completely split upen
20:32
Speaker 1: It just kind of some of the stuff oozed out.
20:36
Speaker 1: But they are affected by gravity. I did have the
20:38
Speaker 1: conclusion in this one, however, the reaction on impact is
20:41
Speaker 1: much smaller than expected, and they maintain maintain a good
20:44
Speaker 1: deal of structural integrity from such a lofty fall. Yeah,
20:47
Speaker 1: six stories, Yeah it's not bad. And my favorite actually
20:50
Speaker 1: um was that they wanted to find out whether Twinkies
20:53
Speaker 1: were sentient or not, and they decided to run this
20:56
Speaker 1: test last because they had killed a lot of Twinkies,
20:59
Speaker 1: as they put it, and they didn't want to know
21:01
Speaker 1: that they were sentient while they were dropping him off
21:04
Speaker 1: six you know story buildings. So they actually administered the
21:08
Speaker 1: Turing test, which is normally used to test whether or
21:11
Speaker 1: not a computer has developed an artificial intelligence. Right, if
21:15
Speaker 1: you put a person in a computer in another room
21:17
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you direct questions to both of them
21:21
Speaker 1: simultaneously and both answer. If you can't tell the difference,
21:24
Speaker 1: then the computer has developed artificial intelligence. So they conducted
21:29
Speaker 1: a turn test or turning sorry test on a sophomore
21:33
Speaker 1: at the college and a Twinkie, and they put them
21:36
Speaker 1: behind a sheet you couldn't see who's who, and they
21:40
Speaker 1: asked certain questions. Um, like they asked the twinkie in
21:45
Speaker 1: the students. Yes. So question one was what would you
21:49
Speaker 1: describe as the purpose of your existence? And uh, subject B,
21:53
Speaker 1: which was the guy. Uh the answer was to wou
21:56
Speaker 1: women and subject A in parentheses no answer, And it
22:00
Speaker 1: just kind of goes on like that, like, um, they
22:03
Speaker 1: wanted to know how the both of them felt about
22:05
Speaker 1: their mother. Um, they did some free association, like the
22:09
Speaker 1: word health prompted the answer sex for free association from
22:14
Speaker 1: subject B. Um, the the word spam prompted no answer
22:19
Speaker 1: from subject A, and so on. So they determined that
22:21
Speaker 1: twinkies are not in fact sentient, that they do not
22:25
Speaker 1: have intelligence. That is a relief. Wouldn't that be unnerving? Yeah? Yeah,
22:29
Speaker 1: as a vegetarian, I think, or a vegan, you would
22:31
Speaker 1: have to stop eating twinkies. Oh I'm not a vegan, No,
22:33
Speaker 1: of course not. Okay, you're beefeater, Yeah, I am definite,
22:59
Speaker 1: So chuck. Most twinkies ever eaten by a person? You
23:03
Speaker 1: want to guess who it is? Uh, Jerry our producer,
23:08
Speaker 1: She's close. Okay, she's very close. Um. Actually there is
23:11
Speaker 1: a guy who is eighty nine, and I believe he
23:15
Speaker 1: lives in Indiana and his name is Lewis Browning. He's
23:18
Speaker 1: been eating a twinkie day since nineteen. He's up the
23:21
Speaker 1: twenty thousand wow dwarfed by the creator of the twinkie,
23:27
Speaker 1: James Stewart. Oh really, he lived to be eighty eight
23:30
Speaker 1: and he ate an estimated forty thousand twinkies in his life.
23:34
Speaker 1: While not bad, not bad at all. So it hats
23:37
Speaker 1: off to both of those men. And I actually I
23:39
Speaker 1: was thinking maybe I should start eating a twinkie a
23:41
Speaker 1: day and see what happens. You know what they say, Josh,
23:43
Speaker 1: a twinki day keeps a doctor away. That's not true.
23:45
Speaker 1: It's not true because they're really not great for you.
23:47
Speaker 1: But I think if you in anything in moderation, you
23:49
Speaker 1: don't go nuts with the twinkies, you're probably all right.
23:51
Speaker 1: But there's Chuck's final thought on twinkies, which means twinkies
23:55
Speaker 1: are done right. I'm done. Okay, I'm done too, so
24:00
Speaker 1: we'll be done with twinkies now. I really, actually I
24:03
Speaker 1: wanted to go eat a twinkie. Yeah, we should have
24:05
Speaker 1: brought some up here, agreed. I told you too. And
24:07
Speaker 1: you're too cheap to go buy him for us. I
24:09
Speaker 1: could have expensed it too. Yeah, all right, well maybe afterwards. Okay,
24:13
Speaker 1: So Chuck Twinkies is done, which means it's listener mail time, Josh,
24:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this listener mail from Amsterdam, alright, one
24:24
Speaker 1: of my favorite places, as you know. Uh. This comes
24:28
Speaker 1: from Robin in Portland, Oregon, and Robin was recently an Amsterdam. Actually,
24:32
Speaker 1: the funny thing is Robin's friends Steph Stephanie wrote in
24:35
Speaker 1: and told us the story and said, you know, my
24:38
Speaker 1: friend Robin's too chicken to write in for some reason.
24:41
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, tell Robin right in
24:42
Speaker 1: and she'll make a listener mail with the story. Chuck
24:44
Speaker 1: delivers on his promises she did. I was recently an
24:47
Speaker 1: Amsterdam for a combination work holiday trip, staying in a
24:51
Speaker 1: fabulous top floor apartment. I took a break from work
24:54
Speaker 1: one day and wanted to the patio for some fresh air,
24:57
Speaker 1: and I realized I closed a patio door and locked
24:59
Speaker 1: myself out and was stuck. No phone, no keys, no jacket,
25:03
Speaker 1: no way down, and it was pouring down rain. Uh.
25:06
Speaker 1: The neighbors heard my cries for help. They were able
25:08
Speaker 1: to log into my email account, find local apartment contacts
25:12
Speaker 1: phone number and throw me their cell phone to make
25:14
Speaker 1: the call. Luckily, the contact had a spare key and
25:17
Speaker 1: was able to let her out in five hours after
25:21
Speaker 1: she gets off work. So I hunkered down in a
25:24
Speaker 1: small corner of the patio. Apparently she had a little
25:27
Speaker 1: space like a two ft by two foot space where
25:29
Speaker 1: she wasn't getting rained on for five hours waiting to
25:32
Speaker 1: be rescued and did I mentioned that. By stroke of luck,
25:34
Speaker 1: I had my iPod with me and it just downloaded
25:37
Speaker 1: several months worth of stuff you should know, silver lining, acclamation,
25:42
Speaker 1: all caps uh. In between learning all about face transplants,
25:45
Speaker 1: exploding lakes, DejaVu, flirting, riga mortis, I spent time stretching,
25:49
Speaker 1: doing jumping Jack's, weeding the plants, and taking short naps. Uh.
25:54
Speaker 1: It was one of the best five hours spent doing
25:55
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. Rarely do I take a step back and
25:58
Speaker 1: just have the time to do that. Josh and Chuck
26:00
Speaker 1: your You both keep me informed, kept me informed, entertained, insane,
26:04
Speaker 1: and thanks to our day together, I was able to
26:06
Speaker 1: flex my intellectual muscle by holding my own on who
26:09
Speaker 1: owns the ocean debate with other international travelers. So she
26:14
Speaker 1: says her friends stuff turned us on to uh turn
26:16
Speaker 1: her onto the show, and thanks a lot, keep up
26:19
Speaker 1: the good work. And she has a loyal listener. So
26:22
Speaker 1: she was stuck out on a porch and Amsterdam and
26:24
Speaker 1: we got her through. That's excellent, pretty cool. Thanks what's
26:27
Speaker 1: her name but cool? Robin of Portlands or Robin all right,
26:32
Speaker 1: Thanks for writing in, Robin, And if anyone else out
26:35
Speaker 1: there wants to share your story about an interventionist God
26:38
Speaker 1: forcing you into a situation where you have to listen
26:40
Speaker 1: to us, you can send us that in an email
26:43
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
26:51
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
26:53
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
26:57
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house, stuff works dot
26:59
Speaker 1: com on pitch