Twinkie
[2] During bankruptcy proceedings, Twinkie production was suspended on November 15, 2012, and resumed after an absence of a few months from American store shelves, becoming available again nationwide on July 15, 2013.
[3][4] Grupo Bimbo's Vachon Inc., which owns the Canadian rights to the product and made them during their absence from the U.S. market,[5] produces Twinkies in Canada at a bakery in Montreal.
[10] Twinkies were invented on April 6, 1930, by Canadian-born baker James "Jimmy" Alexander Dewar for the Continental Baking Company[11] in Schiller Park, Illinois.
[18][19] In November 2012, as Hostess announced its plan to shut down its operations, Time ranked the Twinkie #1 in its list of 10 "iconic" junk foods, saying that "they've been a staple in our popular culture and, above all, in our hearts.
[14] On November 16, 2012, Hostess officially announced that it "will be winding down operations and has filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking permission to close its business and sell its assets, including its iconic brands and facilities."
On November 21, 2012, U.S. bankruptcy judge Robert Drain approved Hostess' request to shut down, ending Twinkie production in the United States.
Melissa Clark (who interviewed one of the deep fried Twinkie's claimed inventors — Christopher Sell, originally from Rugby, England), writing in The New York Times, describes how "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil.
In the 2009 film Zombieland, Twinkies are the favorite snack of the character Tallahassee, who develops an obsession with finding one in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse.
It is not a recognized legal defense in jurisprudence, but a catch-all term coined by reporters during their coverage of the trial of defendant Dan White for the murders of San Francisco city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.
[13] A common urban legend claims that Twinkies have a theoretically infinite shelf life, and can last unspoiled for a relatively long time of ten, fifty, or one hundred years due to the chemicals used in their production.
[46] In 2010, Kansas State University professor Mark Haub went on a "convenience store" diet consisting mainly[47] of a snack of Twinkies, Oreos, or Doritos every 3 hours in an attempt to demonstrate to his students "...that in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most, not the nutritional value of the food."
He lost 27 pounds (12 kg) over a two-month period, returning his body mass index (BMI) to within normal range.
[48][49] In addition to Twinkies, Haub ate Little Debbie snack cakes, cereals, cookies, brownies, Doritos, Oreos and other kinds of high calorie, low-nutrition foods that are usually found at convenience stores.
[50] Besides the protein shake and multivitamin, Haub also ate nutritionally dense whole milk, carrots, and vitamin fortified cereal.
[55] It is claimed legendary bodybuilder Sergio Oliva would sometimes indulge in eating a box of Twinkies (with a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew) after his notoriously strenuous workouts.
