Twinkies defense

This has already been a tough month for childhood icons: first Kodak filed for bankruptcy, & yesterday Hostess has filed. The snack cake giant blamed having to pay out on contractual obligations to current & retired employees as the primary reason for its financial woes.

Of course. Because it can’t possibly be producing a product line of food-like items without recognizable taste or ingredients that practically define the term “empty calories” in an age where they’re being banned from schools & family kitchens alike couldn’t possibly be a contributing factor.

I mean—take a look at the 37 ingredients in a Twinkie. There are only 14 I recognize as food-like products I could purchase & consume (including two kinds of corn syrup & baking soda; & I counted the glucose just to be generous.

(For those not acquainted with the Hostess line, here’s the premise: some sort of cake or sponge lump surrounding a wodge of rubberized cream-like substance, frequently with a hard shell that purports to be icing, but definitely doesn’t melt in your hand.)

As a kid I lusted after Sno Balls®. Coconut is my downfall, & I thought they were the absolute bomb. (Look, I had no point of reference. My mother was not what you might call a baker. A huge thing for us was to get day-old glazed doughnuts from the Helms Olympic Bakery outlet store.) Mom never let me have them, so it was a big deal for me to use baby-sitting money to buy a packet on the sly.

A few years ago I bought a package as a special treat. I couldn’t even finish one of them; the coconut tasted like the spongy frosting tasted like the “chocolate” cake tasted like the crème filling. I didn't try it, but they probably all tasted like the plastic packaging. 

Evidently I’m not the only person to have reached that conclusion; hence yesterday’s filing

Regarding the stated reason for bankruptcy, let me just make one observation. It’s very interesting that corporations don’t seem to have any difficulty finding the money to meet their contractual obligations to senior management, but never have enough to do the same for the people who actually make the products or deliver the service.

Snack on that.