Watching the news this morning I learned that Hostess Brand, a 87 year old company and maker of the infamous Twinkies is going bankrupt again.
This made me very happy considering the fact that the Twinkie, (150 calories and 4.5 gr of fat) is not really a food but a mixture of chemicals and trans fat, filled with an unidentifiable sugary cream filling that never goes bad. Of course when my children were growing up, if they found a Hostess Brand Ding Dong (368 calories, 19.4 gr of fat) or Twinkie in their lunchbox, I was truly “Mom of the Day!” Here are the exact ingredients of that Twinkie:
Apparently, because there has been more demand for healthier options such as yogurt and energy bars, purchase of this gooey snack has diminished. Under its most recent bankruptcy filing, it is looking to restructure into a “strong, competitive” company. I found the following video very enlightening about this subject:
Another sugary issue is our love for sweet drinks. Every year Americans drink 13.8 billion gallons of soda, fruit punch, sweet tea, sports drinks, and other sweetened beverages. According to Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine and of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF (University of California, SF), after analyzing the effect of a nationwide tax on these sugary drinks, estimates of 240,000 cases of diabetes per year, 100,000 cases of heart disease, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 deaths over the next decade could be realized simply by slapping this penny-per-ounce tax on sweetened beverages.
Even more impressive would be the savings to the public of $17 billion over the next decade in health care related expenses due to the decline of obesity-related diseases (as well as the $13 billion per year in direct tax revenue). The fact that surprised me was that the scientists who generated this first study to generate concrete estimates of the health benefits and cost savings of such a tax are only estimating a reduction of 10 to 15% over a decade!
Some interesting facts about these sugary drinks:
- 17 teaspoons of sugar in a typical 22-oz soda
- 45 gallons consumed annually per person of sweet beverages
- 70,000 calories is average number person consumes per year in sweet drinks
- cost per decade of excess coronary artery disease attributable to elevated consumption of sweetened drinks may be as high as $500 billion!
We all know deep down that sugar is toxic. If it takes a tax to stop even 10 to 15% of us to stop consuming so much of it, then it is a worthwhile tax. Just happy to see that Americans are choosing yogurt over twinkies some of the time!
