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- Enterres, on 07/09/2009, -4/+5310. 1,000 Twinkies a minute and 16 a second are made. In the time is takes you to blink, four Twinkies come off the Hostess production line
On a sad environmental note, Hostess goes through 40,000 miles (64,373 kilometers) of plastic wrap per year wrapping them up.
9. What many of us don't realize is that some fast-food fries aren't just fatty and starchy. They're also sugary. While they don't really taste sweet (or do they?), they've got added sugar for other reasons. Restaurants like McDonald's dip their fries in sugar to give them that nice golden brown color when they're fried. It also helps to develop that nice outer crispiness that can be difficult to replicate at home.
8. To copy nature's single-ingredient flavor called "strawberry," one common concoction has more than four dozen ingredients. If you consume fast-food strawberry milkshakes or other mass-produced strawberry-flavor desserts, chances are you're eating an artificial flavor made of more than 50 different chemicals, beginning with amyl acetate and ending with solvent. There's also benzyl isobutyrate, phenethyl alcohol and mint and cognac essential oils in there (it's anybody's guess how they figured out mint and cognac can help produce "strawberry").
7. Seaweed extract keeps ice cream crystal-free.
6. Worcestershire sauce is relatively nutritious for a condiment and made of anchovies which have lots protein and calcium
5. You know all those pink foods that draw you in with their pretty, appetizing, fruitlike color? Lots of them, including Dannon strawberry yogurt and Ocean Spray pink-grapefruit juice drink, are made with bugs.
You won't find "bugs" in the ingredient list, of course. The critters are in the form of a common food coloring called cochineal extract (or sometimes carmine or carminic acid). Cochineal gets its red color from an insect called Dactylopius coccus Costa, which feeds on red cactus berries.
To make cochineal, the insects are dried and then ground up into a powder. You'll find it in lots of processed pink, red or purple foods.
4. Now, while "cheese" is exactly what it sounds like -- namely, cheese, "cheese product" is decidedly un-cheesy. By definition, cheese product is composed of less than 51 percent cheese. More than half the product is such ingredients as emulsifiers, carrageenan (that's the seaweed-extract stabilizer) and flavorings like citric acid for that cheese-characteristic tanginess.
By contrast, "cheese food," like American cheese, is somewhere between 51 percent and 99 percent cheese
3. One product, canned mushrooms, is allowed to have up to 19 maggots per 100 grams of mushrooms (that's drained weight). That same portion can acceptably contain up to 74 mites.
There are similar rules for bug parts in lots of other mass-produced foods, such as peanut butter and hot dogs. The lesson is: Eating maggots may gross you out, but it's not gonna hurt you. (So says the FDA, at least.)
2. frozen fruits and vegetables may be more nutritious than the often unripe stuff in the fresh section.
1. Just a few surprising areas where you'll find beef -- typically in "extract" or "essence" form -- include McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, Wendy's Grilled Chicken Sandwich and KFC's Grilled Chicken Sandwich.
It also used to be in McDonald's french fries, which proved to be an expensive secret ingredient. McDonald's paid $10 million in 2002 to settle an array of lawsuits filed by Hindus (for whom cows are sacred) and vegetarians who'd been eating the so-called "vegetarian" menu item. - Hetman, on 07/10/2009, -0/+18It is if you are trying to make a profit off of 99 cent cheesburgers.
- Enterres, on 07/09/2009, -1/+16According to some quick research England is the 4th fattest country in the world, with an astonishingly 23% of its population obese.
Hazarding a guess i would say that "no," you are not missing out. - Rikkochet, on 07/10/2009, -0/+14I hate that policy. When I made a stuffed beef tenderloin it has at least 10 ingredients in it. Spice mixes can contain a dozen different spices.
Here's a better policy: if you are reading the ingredients and don't know what something is, RESEARCH IT AND LEARN WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES.
These cute little rules for preserving ignorance are astounding. - Cepster, on 07/10/2009, -0/+13Worcestershire sauce is a fish product, that has nothing to do with it being mass-produced. This article should have just been called "Surprise! You're not an actual vegetarian, sucker!"
- inactive, on 07/10/2009, -2/+14Mass produced food is terrible for you.
That's why I only eat endangered species!
OM NOM, these spotted owls taste good. - GiJoeBob, on 07/10/2009, -1/+11Regarding #1 - That beefy flavor that tastes so good is the fifth flavor after sweet, salty, sour and bitter. It is called umami.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami - dracoregis, on 07/09/2009, -1/+10Living in the UK, I've never had a twinkie am I missing out?
- X9001, on 07/10/2009, -2/+10Is it really so hard to make real food these days?
- GRANDPAMUNSTER, on 07/10/2009, -0/+8I guess I will start making my own strawberry shakes now.
- xenuxenuts, on 07/10/2009, -0/+8If you have never tasted freshly made food of any kind then twinkies are ok.
- FredFredrickson, on 07/10/2009, -0/+7Bug parts are going to get in your food whether you're mass producing it or not.
- dixieleopard, on 07/10/2009, -0/+6dear god, no you're not.
- GilThielander, on 07/10/2009, -0/+4FTA: "...and the ice cream it houses can get a bit melty with these temperature shifts."
If it wasn't for Taco Bell, melty would not be a word.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/webste ... - beetrixi, on 07/09/2009, -2/+6Maggots and bug parts? *gag*
- tacojohn48, on 07/10/2009, -0/+499 cent double cheeseburgers
- leazarus, on 07/10/2009, -0/+4I'm partial to a nice, rare, manatee steak myself.
- Nishnabotna, on 07/10/2009, -0/+4The FDA also mandates an acceptable level of rat droppings.
Bugs aren't so bad now, are they? - jasdf, on 07/10/2009, -0/+3Zingers!
- ironhide, on 07/10/2009, -1/+4If you're in the pacific northwest, try Burgerville. They have seasonal shakes made from what berries are in season here. MMMMM
- inactive, on 07/11/2009, -0/+3I'm glad I have a garden.
- UselessTrivia, on 07/10/2009, -0/+3But it always has two of them in every loaf. Pretty consistent if you ask me.
- miggyb, on 07/10/2009, -0/+3McDonalds makes money from sides and drinks, actually. They only break even when they sell hamburgers.
/Heard it from some guy who heard it on TV, etc... - WocCixelsyd, on 07/10/2009, -0/+2You know, in many cultures they eat these sorts of things.
Mmmhmm... good and natural. - inactive, on 07/11/2009, -0/+2Yeah, McDonalds makes a ton off of drinks. It's like pure profit from them since the cost of the materials to make the drinks are so low.
- Super6, on 07/10/2009, -0/+2I don't really like them but they're just a bar of yellow cake with a white creme injected in the middle
- Cainxinth, on 07/11/2009, -0/+2Cheese product is like grape drink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDIjePMr0Ak - ryeno, on 07/11/2009, -0/+2LOL
- josh514, on 07/11/2009, -0/+2I don't even like to eat food.
- lydiasky, on 07/09/2009, -2/+4Oh, yum ... bug parts ... how "delicious".
....
Gross. - askantik, on 07/10/2009, -0/+2Too bad almost everything at fast food places or in little plastic bags or in cans at the grocery store are like this. But yes, it is disturbing. What's disturbing is that it would actually (surprise!) taste better with real strawberries, but then they couldn't make quite such a hit profit margin and *gasp!* it wouldn't have a shelf life of like 2 years. :/
- askantik, on 07/10/2009, -0/+2There are a zillion places to get that besides "beef extract," though.
- wolfing, on 07/10/2009, -3/+4yes, you're missing out. They are delicious, and totally addictive, I used to eat a pair every day when I was in high school, and I was lean too! (I miss that age, when no matter what you ate, you wouldn't gain weight)
- lydiasky, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1True, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
- 4AntiStupid, on 07/11/2009, -0/+1Check out the flavorings at a cooking shop. They cost a few dollars for a bottle and are enough to flavor hundred of servings. Only trace amounts are required.
- zip000, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1Oh man, I used to love raspberry zingers...especially when I was...in college.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1356/1344602698_a30 ... - zip000, on 07/10/2009, -1/+2Ah crap. I don't eat beef....but I had a chicken mcnugget for the first time in many years a few weeks ago.
Oh well, might as well go get a steak now :-p - ancalagon73, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1I prefer Ring Dings myself.
- mparker21311, on 07/10/2009, -3/+41 Quirky Fact About Food.
Someone dies every second due to starvation. - Hefelumpman, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1Having moved from the UK to California... no. No you're not.
The majority of this country's missing out on Nandos though! :( - gdha, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1A lot of facts here I had no idea about...now, ill start eating these much differently.
- diemunkiesdie, on 07/11/2009, -0/+1Is this a real question? Do you really not understand how it is more expensive to grow strawberries that have a short shelf life, than it is to make imitation strawberry flavor that will last much longer without spoiling? If you really didn't understand then I apologize for insulting you!
- ApeInago, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1Some vegiterians still eat fish.
- aesthetigeek, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1This article reminds me once again that I don't want tot eat this crap and that real food is always better. Consistency is overrated.
- jasdf, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1Just make loafs in the shape of a toroid. Slice the bread like this / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ (but not such an extreme angle).
- Mordanthanus, on 07/11/2009, -1/+2What I don't understand is how 4 dozen or so chemicals can be cheaper than one single ingredient. You are telling me that these companies are "saving a buck" having truckloads of chemicals and other ingredients shipped in to taste like strawberries and it is cheaper than just using a damn strawberry?
- BlackX4Life, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1jamba juice <3
- isxrc, on 07/09/2009, -0/+1yeh i always hear about those in the movies....apparently the LAPD love them so I'm guessing they must be tasty yet also unhealthy........
- mikbunn, on 07/10/2009, -0/+1Twinkies taste like a sponge filled with sugary hair gel.
Hohos ftw. - 4AntiStupid, on 07/11/2009, -0/+0I have a bag of that seaweed in my pantry. It's a natural ingredient I use in my home brew beer. It makes the solids in suspension clump together and fall to do the bottom making the beer clearer. It doesn't get it as clear as filtering like commercial breweries but filtering at home is a difficult process that can introduce bacteria and make it sour.
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