I wanted to travel to see the raw source of every ingredient I could, including all the sub-ingredients, going back to wherever anything came from the ground, as well as where things were processed. I regret that I didn’t see absolutely every spot, but the places I did see are vivid in my mind to this day, they were so impressive. Here are a few snapshots, just for fun (they look best in the slide show, which starts when you click on the image just below, but you can also enlarge any photo by double-clicking on it). Unfortunately, I was at the mercy of my hosts and guides for pictures of me, and in most places, cameras weren’t allowed. I would have loved to shoot a video at the plant where they break 7,000,000 eggs a day. But this gives you an idea of where Twinkies’ ingredients come from.
Location Shots
I’m at the entry of the mine shaft in Wyoming where the rock used to make baking soda and baking powder comes from. Went 1600 feet down--and then drove in a Jeep for 30 minutes! I’m carrying emergency breathing gear.
The trucks used to haul phosphorus ore are not small. And the ore looks like dirt. The phosphorus goes into baking powder, a white powder. Go figure.
This place, right along the Missouri River, not only makes lactic acid for sodium stearyoyl lactylate, but 5 million pounds of high-fructose corn syrup a day.
The thousands of polished stainless steel pipes in this whey plant made it look like an industrial disco to me.
The whey plant presents a kind of Olympics for plumbing.
Checking out a rich cornfield in Sydney, western Iowa. Now they leave a fair amount of trash from the cornstalk on the surface, to protect and enrich the soil.
Getting to know baby soybean plants in Assumption, Illinois.
A combine harvester is not a simple machine.
The Mississippi River along Iowa (Clinton, here) is busy with barges full of corn or soybeans that must dodge bridges and fit into numerous locks. The tugboats look like small factories.
Some of the world’s biggest factories for processing corn and soybeans have their own power plants.
Power supply near a large processing plant.
Most corn and soybean processing plants are in relatively urban areas.
Some are VERY urban.
A flour mixture quality control lab uses an extraordinary array of powerful analytical equipment.
Fox News Live, with Jon Scott
March 12, 2007
(No, he did not eat the Twinkies as planned, but the stagehands stole half of them.) Also showing: a jar of polysorbate 60 and the three rocks that go into baking powder.
