A few weeks ago Steve Ettlinger, the author of “Twinkie, Deconstructed,” spoke at Google in Mountain View as part of the Authors @ Google series. I watched via video conference and found what he had to say very interesting.

The book idea came one day when Steve’s young daughter was reading the ingredient list on an ice cream bar and asked him, “Daddy, what’s polysorbate 60?”. He had no idea, but soon would find out. Steve became very interested in the ingredients in processed foods – where they come from how they’re made, how they’re used, and why they’re used. He took the Twinkie as a perfect example, made the book’s table of contents the Twinkie ingredient list, and then went out to figure out where each thing came from. He started at the source and then followed each ingredient to see how it was processed and then finally how it came to be added to the Twinkie.

It’s really interesting to see that Twinkie ingredients come from phospate mines in Idaho, corn fields in Iowa, gypsum mines in Oklahoma, vanilla harvests in Madagascar, and the list goes on. I mean, mines? We’re eating rocks, not food! I have a copy of the book now and it soon will be inserted into my reading schedule.