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Twinkie, not really food. by Vilseskogen, on Flickr

I picked up Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger at the library after seeing this interesting visual about the Twinkie’s 37 ingredients. It wasn’t a riveting read, aside from a few real shockers I’ll get to in a minute.

The author doesn’t pass negative judgment on any of the ingredients he investigates, other than citing recent research on hydrogenated oils. So the genetically modified corn and the Roundup it resists are just wonderful new things that make High Fructose Corn Syrup possible and prevalent. Ingredients so stripped of nutrition that they require enrichment to prevent diseases of starvation are considered a marvel, made possible by the very best modern agriculture and processing has to offer. After a while, the annoying lack of thought being given to the ingredients the author describes becomes nearly unbearable. It was all I could do to push on to the final pages of the book.

But I did learn two very important things from this book—shocking, paradigm-shifting things that threaten once again my ability to eat processed food with a clear conscience.

As I mentioned in my post titled There’s Peak Oil In My Sandwich, a surprising number of ingredients in our food supply are reliant on, or derived from, petroleum. The “1500 mile rule”—the average American meal travels about 1500 miles to get from farm to plate—describes the petroleum used to get food from farm to distribution center to store and to home. If that were the only petroleum used in food production, that would be bad enough.

The processed food on your grocery store shelf is dripping with crude oil. Petroleum is used in great quantity as a solvent to extract the essential nutrient part of various substances to create the “enrichment blend” used in almost all processed foods. Any time you see the word “enriched,” just think “petroleum.” It’s also used to process the corn thickeners that provide processed foods with the desired texture. Mono- and diglycerides can be made from petroleum. Glycerin made this way meets kosher requirements. Polysorbate 60 is a petroleum product. Artificial vanilla flavoring, made from benzene, is a petroleum product. Propylene glycol is a petroleum product. Diacetyl is a petroleum product. Sorbic acid is made from petroleum. Artificial colors and flavors are made of petroleum.

The other piece of info that shocked me right out of my chair was how much of our food supply originates overseas. Each year, approximately $2 trillion of imported products enter the United States. Experts project that import volume will triple by 2015.

After the discovery of melamine in milk and milk powder in 2008 (which caused 300,000 illnesses), the discovery of trace melamine in Chinese eggs and pet food, and subsequent recalls of lead and cadmium paint in consumer goods, most people I know are avoiding foods and goods produced in China. But they are fooling themselves—they are only avoiding foods that announce their Chinese origin. If you are eating any processed food, the likelihood is great that you are eating something from China.

Of that omnipresent “enrichment blend” of vitamins that give Twinkies the ability to fight pellagra, only iron is produced in the United States. Every other vitamin and mineral comes from Switzerland and China. This is also true of storebought enriched breads and the enriched flour used in home kitchens.

Artificial vanilla flavoring is made in two major petrochemical plants in China and one in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Food colorings Red 40 and Yellow 5 most likely come from a petroleum refinery near the Yellow River Delta in China.

Start in Belarus, Russia, and Poland with the least expensive milk on the planet, then ship it to New Zealand or Ireland for processing into sodium and calcium caseinate. The only makers of sorbic acid are found in Japan, China and Germany.

Pick up any food with an ingredient list in your pantry, and you are likely to find at least one of these ingredients. Eat in a restaurant, fast-food or upscale, and you will run into several.

So, while I didn’t think Twinkie, Deconstructed was a great book, I sure learned something from it. I’m not comfortable with my newfound knowledge, however, and must agree with Thomas Gray: Ignorance is indeed bliss.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.