Is nothing sacred anymore?
No Virginia, there is nothing sacred anymore.
Walking the aisles of my neighborhood supermarket, I came ’round a corner and there they were. A giant display of them. The only Made-in-Hollywood ingredients missing from this sudden, yet touching reunion scene were the heavenly warbling of an angelic choir and a hovering, golden halo-like hue.
But instead, I jammed my shopping cart into hyper-drive, swerved round some elder reaching for toilet paper and cut off some kid waving a box of Cocoa Puffs above his head and running after his mother. I grabbed a box of Twinkies and one of another resurrected dessert delight, Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes. Then on to the dairy cooler, snatched a gallon of milk and headed straight away to the checkout.
The Hostess Powdered Donettes would be another day. Alas, I was already locked and overloaded.
In less time than it takes to stuff a wad of sugary white something into a yellow, sort of cake-like tube, cash changed hands, snacks were bagged – paper, not plastic – and I was out the door.
Of course I didn’t wait, not even long enough to start the truck. Ripped the box open, reached in and pulled out … an extra from the kitchen cupboard in the movie, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
“What have they done to my Twinkie!,” I yelled to no one. “Why, it’s no bigger than my pinky! In fact, it’s downright dinky! And why am I talking like this, Dr. Seuss is dead and this is beginning to feel creepy!”
What. The. Hell.
Later, at home, a little research provided me with a lot of answers. Like this, from a nydailynews.com article:
“Purists might notice a slight difference in this latest version of the beloved snack cake — it’s about 15 calories less than the traditional version, and weighs less too.
A single spongy treat now has 135 calories and weighs 38.5 grams, according to a Hostess spokesperson.
The traditional Twinkie weighed 42.5 grams and had 150 calories.”
Now, wait a minute. Granted, I can’t tell the difference between a diet book and kindling, but something tells me there’s not one diet plan that includes the Twinkie. No meal plan that recommends you pound down a couple of Twinkies with a glass of skim milk, then turn sideways and look in a mirror and proudly say, “Now that’s slim and trim.”
Nutrition, thy name is not Twinkie.
I’m not mad, just … disappointed. And I’m not giving up on my just-returned palatable pal. The shelf life of this smaller snack has been upped to 46 days, far greater than the old, bigger one’s 26. So I’m putting my box up on my shelf, way in the back, where it can’t be seen or touched. I won’t take it down for another 45, 46 days.
By then they should be full-grown.
