Saturday, April 29, 2006

Twinkies


Here's what a Twinkie is: TWINKIE - a "Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling" created by Hostess

I needed to get small bills to put in the box at the trail head today so I stopped at a gas station and bought a pack of Twinkies. "The Artist's Way" has an exercise where you write down some of your favorite foods as a kid. Everybody loves Twinkies and AJ and I were just talking about how they are one thing that was on both our lists.

I will never eat another Twinkie. EVER.

Not only are they SO sweet that they are almost bitter, they are full of the worst junk ever known to man. Let's go over some of the ingredients:

1-Enriched Wheat Flour - enriched with ferrous sulphate (iron), B vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate [B1], riboflavin [B12] and folic acid)
Basically they bleach the flour to make sure there aren't any more pesticides or any other crap in it. Then they put a bunch of things back in to try and make up for everything they killed.
2-Sugar
The first "real" ingredient.
3-Corn syrup
Sugar alone isn't sweet enough. It's also not the right texture. Corn syrup isn't too bad.
4-Water
Real ingredient #2
5-High fructose corn syrup
This is the killer. Avoid this at all costs. See, sugar and corn syrup aren't sweet enough together even, so they had to add this crap. Your body doesn't know what to do with it. It's unnatural in this form. They took 2 molecules and smashed them together to make a pseudo-molecule that's extra tasty sweet. But, in that form, your body can't digest it right. It knows it's sweet, so it makes some insulin to try and break it down, but it doesn't work. Your body stores the High Fructose Corn Syrup and you get fat and the extra insulin makes you diabetic. Hello modern America.
6-Vegetable and/or animal shortening (containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed or canola oil, lard and beef fat)
This is so it tastes rich and good. The more fat in there, the more your tongue will be able to taste every morsel. Why the hell they need 5 kinds of fat... that's just insane.
7-Dextrose
This is another name for Glucose. Why change the name? Maybe to hide what it is from the public? Who knows. It's another sweetener because the other 3 aren't enough.
8-Whole eggs.
The 3rd real ingredient.

Then there's a bunch of extra stuff to put it in a nice little package for your enjoyment.

Contains 2% or less of:
Modified corn starch
Cellulose gum
Whey Leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate)
Salt
Cornstarch
Corn flour
Corn syrup solids
Mono and diglycerides
Soy lecithin
Polysorbate 60
Dextrin
Calcium caseinate
Sodium stearol lactylate
Wheat gluten
calcium sulfate
Natural and artificial flavors
Caramel color
Sorbic acid (to retain freshness)
Color added (yellow 5, red 40)

Now you know.
And knowing is half the battle.
Don't eat Twinkies. They'll kill you.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Sonoma County

We took a drive in the lil' bus up to wine country.
The drive up was awesome - We stuck to route 1 and then headed in on 116.
This part of route 1 is (we swear) the road they drove on for the car chase in Basic Instinct. Who knows, but it was super-windy and right next to the cliff/coast. NO GUARD RAIL! The road was at times really stressed and had 6 inch deep pothole-like depressions that spanned the entire width of the road. A couple RVs couldn't take it and had to pull over. The lil' bus handled quite well.

I will post pics later - We saw seals and rocks broken off cliffs.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Golden Gate Bridge

Sunday we went to meet Chris in SF and took a trip to see the bridge. I can see why people jump. It really does look romantic looking inland at the city and the bay, seeing Alcatraz glowing in the sunset...

Check out the pics HERE.

No ticks on the bridge.

Henry Coe State Park 04/08/06


We drove out a bit to put more miles on the van. We got stopped by some cows, and I brought an unwanted guest home with me...

Check out the pics HERE.

Did you know that Lyme Disease was named after a town in Conneticut?

Monterey Bay 04/01/06


For April fools day we went to Monterey Bay. Mostly to put miles on the van, but also to see something new.

Check out the pics here.

We didn't make to the aquarium, so we'll have to go back soon.

Monday, April 03, 2006

XBox 360



Sunday we went to Best Buy to get a tax program because they seem to be able to get us a bigger return through weird magic. The big news is that they had XBox 360s. Well, I had a couple gift cards from Christmas burning a hole in my wallet, so I cut them loose.

Thanks Mom & Dad (and significant others). I got a new toy. Premium bundle XBox 360. mmmmm Tasty. Here's a list of the differences.


The only problem is: The F*CKING games cost $60+! What's with these companies? Do they think we gamers are MADE of money?!?!? Sheesh! Guess I'll be waiting for some used games... LOL