Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get

An anonymous reader writes "When Hostess, baker of Twinkies, filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in November, Twinkies were no more. Then, a private equity firm bought the business for $410 million and planned to resume production in 'The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.' Now, an article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that they're still hard to get, since an unprecedented demand has caused orders to exceed production capacity 'by a significant amount.'"

Comments

Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pathetic that there could be that much of a demand for 'Twinkies'; the food of the unhealthy and overweight.

Re:Pathetic

[Sockatume]

That's a bit rich coming from someone making an anonymous comment on an internet article, which is about the intellectual equivalent of a vending machine breakfast. I say this as a past-master at both activities.

Re:Pathetic

[gl4ss]

I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.
besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

Re:Pathetic

[h4rr4r]

What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?

My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient. Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths. If you want to lower healthcare costs you have to get people to do more of this stuff. Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, and it's funny how the US's obesity problem's been in effect since long before health care reform became a thing. Oh, and how the US has been notoriously more obese than countries that have had socialized health care for decades.

Go home, troll, you're drunk.

Re:Pathetic

[bill_mcgonigle]

besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.

Re:Pathetic

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

What I don't understand is why Twinkies are so popular when Suzy Qs are so much more awesome and they never even get a mention.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.

The "Death Panels" will take care of you. [ /sarcasm ]

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, it wasn't really in such high demand until the stories came out that it was being discontinued. Hoarders and attempted opportunists quickly bought up the remaining stock and now the "no, I won't pay $300 for a box of Twinkies" majority of the nostalgia-afflicted surpass the production rate.

Re:Pathetic

[SQLGuru]

There was an entire end-cap full of them when I went grocery shopping yesterday.......I passed them up, but I could have easily filled several shopping carts with them. Had I known I could still turn a profit on them, I might have grabbed a few.

Re:Pathetic

[ebno-10db]

most countries have taxes on sugar etc.

Which countries? (seriously). I'm curious if we're talking levels high enough to alter behavior (which I suspect would be awfully high). The US taxes sugar imports, which is part of why HFCS is used so much.

Re:Pathetic

[BrokenHalo]

In any case, what exactly is a twinkie? And are they designed for oral ingestion or for insertion via another orifice?

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.

They also managed to extract all the money from the employee's retirement fund and give it to themselves in the form of bonuses, then continue to reduce pay (while increasing bonuses) until the workers couldn't afford to work anymore. Then they sold the company for millions. I'd say they managed the "bankruptcy" brilliantly, from a cut-throat, anti-working folks sort of way. Now those same working-class folks are going to go run out any buy the product to reward it.

Re:Pathetic

[glennrrr]

My impression is that the company had some expensive labor contracts and bankruptcy was its answer to voiding them.

Re:Pathetic

[kannibal_klown]

Don't bother trying it.

I was the same way: I never had one and wanted to try. I finally had one when I was like 20yo: I couldn't take more than a bit or two and threw the rest out.

I'm not a pastry snob or anything: I've tried and enjoyed a number of mass-produced pasties. I used to LOVE Butterscotch Krimpets.

But I can't see why the Twinkie is so popular, it tastes like junk. I mean: out of all of the mass-produced pasties out there... Twinkies are like the bottom of the barrel. Even the other Hostess products were better.

Re:Pathetic

[OzPeter]

Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.

The "Death Panels" will take care of you. [ /sarcasm ]

The death panels already exist and have existed for years and years - however their correct name is Actuary.

Re:Pathetic

[Sockatume]

Something almost exactly unlike cake.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw, those lucky bastards will die quick and cheap deaths, while healthy people like you and I will spend decades wasting away of dementia or something in a nursing home, being burdens on both the system and our families.

Re:Pathetic

[K. S. Kyosuke]

besides, most countries have taxes on food etc..

Here, FTFY.

Re:Pathetic

[jeffmflanagan]

That's as stupid as the people who think people so poor that they don't pay taxes are somehow cheating us.

Re:Pathetic

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Probably because no jury would buy a Suzy Q defense.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you prefer the ad hominem argument to dismiss people's opinions and ideas instead actually dealing with the opinions and ideas?

The USA Constitution supports the use of anonymous speech. You don't? It makes you a NSA-master!

(Disclaimer: I love baked goods and sweets. Yummy, Yummy in my Tummy! Though I don't eat them often at all.)

Re:Pathetic

[h4rr4r]

We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

Re:Pathetic

[jeffmflanagan]

Twinkies were never all that great. HoHos and Dingdongs are where it's at.

Hostess has pretty stupid product names.

Re:Pathetic

[fustakrakich]

No, what's pathetic is a society which makes it easier to get a bag of cocaine 365/24/7 than it is to buy a package of Twinkies at the store. It doesn't matter that the cocaine is probably healthier. If you want want to make Twinkies easy to find, the government needs to label them a Schedule 1 substance. Nothing creates a market like prohibition does.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

The US also set a legal lowest price (price control) on sugar, to raise the cost of the domestic sugar beat sugar, and keep big corn making loads of money.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.
besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

Blame the unions. the Bakers union wouldn't come to the table and drove the company into the poorhouse. they wouldn't have needed the banks if the union could have seen the greed they were exercising was killing a once great US baking establishment.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think an individual can turn a profit on them. I think the stores are demanding to stock more than the company can produce. I don't think this is a $300/box situation like when the bankruptcy was announced.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

Not just that, but they were also making a direct political attack on unions at the same time.

I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.

I can't believe there's such a thing as Minion cupcakes, after googling for images I think I'd be sick if I ate one at my age.

Re:Pathetic

[geminidomino]

Shut UP! Didn't you RTFS? Do you really want the awesome chocolate-like goodness to become as thin on the ground as the yellow logs of styrofoam?!

Re:Pathetic

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Suzy Qs

Tastes awesome AND has a cool name.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient.

And on their way to dying of complications from metabolic syndrome, they'll consume hundreds of thousands or millions in:
1) Drugs to manage their multiple conditions;
2) Emergency medical procedures to stave off their imminent death for a little longer; Stents, bypasses, catheterizations, correcting liver and kidney damage, the likely growth of GI-tract cancers as a result of eating so much garbage for so long, strokes, blood clots... the list goes on.

You don't seem to understand that "keeping someone who's very sick alive for 20-30 years" is actually quite expensive.

And yes, WE pay for it. It is subsidized - either through higher insurance costs, higher taxes, or higher prices at the doctor's office. They don't refuse to render emergency treatment (something that the people with metabolic syndrome are MORE likely to need), and the money has to come from somewhere to pay for that.

The odds are NOT on these being "cheap deaths" - in fact, the odds show that this is a signficant driver of the increases in health care costs over the past couple decades.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

The original Twinkie company was run out of business because the Unions (and Unionized employees) would not take a pay-cut to save the business.
The original Twinkie company had a good number of bakeries throughout the USA and shipped their Twinkies fresh to all the retail outlets.
The original Twinkie company did reduce the size of the Twinkie before bankruptcy but it was too-little-too-late.

The new Twinkie company halved the number of bakeries throughout the USA.
The new Twinkie company did not rehired all the former Unionized employees--just the number needed for the reduced number of bakeries.
The new Twinkie company kept the smaller, "new" Twinkie.
The new Twinkie company freezes the "new" Twinkie and ships them throughout the USA--this means a smaller distribution operation.

The original Twinkie company did do some things wrong--and went out of business as a result.
The original Twinkie company did do some things right--the fresher product to the customer.

While I don't eat Twinkies, I think the running gag about Twinkies in the movie, "Zombieland" was quite enjoyable. Even zombies won't kill the demand for Twinkies! Twinkies are a part of Americana and the Pop Culture. I was sad to see them go but glad to see them come back.

Re:Pathetic

[psergiu]

A (semi)solid food equivalent of a "sugary-water" drink.
Basically, a device created to facilitate the ingestion of sugar and/or corn-syrup.

Re:Pathetic

[davydagger]

agreed. To this day, I've never actually seen a nerd consume a twinkie.

I think it just comes from some gross prerojitave that if someone is fat they must eat twinkies.

Good grief

Re:Pathetic

[Dogtanian]

I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.

I live in the UK, and tried one towards the end of last year. (*) In all honesty, I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Even accounting for the fact it may have been marginally stale- since it was an import- it had that almost "uncanny valley" fake quality to it of something that would never have been conventionally "fresh" in the first place. It reminded me of some off-the-shelf (also long-life) waffles I'd tried previously and been similarly unimpressed with.

The snack itself was just bland; mediocre cake and an uninteresting, over-sweet cream filling. Nothing disgusting, just... pointless.

"Long life" baked goods like Twinkies don't seem to be as culturally important over here. I'm only guessing, but possibly the popularity of long-life snacks like the Twinkie may be greater in the US because being more geographically spread out than other countries made keeping goods fresh more of an issue, particuarly when Twinkies (etc.) rose to prominence in the mid-20th-century.

(*) The fact this was around the time of the bankruptcy was pretty coincidental; a new shop importing US snacks had opened, and I was curious to try one. I paid something silly for it- around £1.75 IIRC- but again I doubt that was because of the bankruptcy- the shop markup was already high, and they were charging more for individual ones split from their packs.

Re:Pathetic

[Steve_Ussler]

Only unhealthy is you eat too many. With Twinkies, like everything else. moderation is the key.

Re:Pathetic

[jimbolauski]

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

What happened was Hostess had no capital to run, and no ability to borrow so they had no choice but to close. It was not until after the bankruptcy that the debts were clear, pensions reduced, and union contracts ripped up that Hostess became a viable company to buy. It was simply too big a risk to buy until the ink was dry on the bankruptcy filings.

Re:Pathetic

[tlambert]

What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?

It's called "private medical research" and "medical tourism".

My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient.

Your understanding is out of date. We are currently using Porcine stem cells and islet transplants to treat diabetes, albeit it's still considered experimental treatment in the U.S. so that insurance companies, which we still have to pay for our healthcare, rather than having a single payer system like the rest of the world, don't have to pay for the treatment:

http://www.mmf.umn.edu/diabetes/

On the other hand, if you are willing to travel to Russia, Finland, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Panama, or Poland, they'll happily take your money, and provide treatment for Diabetes, Parkinsons, and a half dozen other conditions, and several of the countries will even let you buy antiaging treatments as well.

When Porcine stem cells are used, you have to sign some pretty strict agreements, since they down't want PERV (Porcine Endogenous Retro Virus) crossing species boundaries, unless you agree to sexually isolate yourself on the order of the protection necessary to prevent the spread of AIDS (condoms, etc.).

Re:Pathetic

[davydagger]

no, the ceased production because demand dropped to the point they were no longer profitable.

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/12/11/16/1849212/hostess-to-close-no-more-twinkies

they were going through the death throws, i.e. cutting wages, etc...

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, asshole. Some of us exercise pretty damn hard during the week AND have the metabolism of a jackrabbit, to boot.

I do three different styles of fighting AND I generally eat what I want.... and don't gain weight past 193lbs.

There are millions upon millions of people in the united states. You think people who eat twinkies are all unhealthy and overweight? What about kids who burn off that excess energy in the span of an hour?

GodDAMN you're fucking stupid.

Re:Pathetic

[davydagger]

yeah, stupid unions wanting working wages. They weren't asking for a raise, they were asking that their salaries didn't get cut from $18/hour to $14/hour!

and how much does management make to sit with their thumbs in their asses?

If they wanted to save the company, they could have. The press decided to blame it on the unions.

Re:Pathetic

[xaxa]

most countries have taxes on sugar etc.

Which countries? (seriously). I'm curious if we're talking levels high enough to alter behavior (which I suspect would be awfully high). The US taxes sugar imports, which is part of why HFCS is used so much.

Denmark had a fat tax, and proposed a sugar tax, but both were scrapped in 2012. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/11/denmark-abandons-sugar-and-fat-taxes.html

I found a paper copy of the British Medical Journal, and found this article informative: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2931 but I don't have a subscription (there's a paywall).

Re:Pathetic

[MetalliQaZ]

Claremont, NH? I'm not surprised. I curse that God-awful town every time I have to drive through it.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

The patients ask for it. I am a doctor. Many people say that they are at peace with dying, but when they are actually near death, NO ONE really means it. In 20 years, I have seen too many people die than I can count. All of them wanted everything done, regardless of the cost and side effects, and questionable benefit. If there was even the slightest question of prolonging their life 10 minutes, as long as it was covered by insurance, then they insisted on the treatment. But I'm sure you don't want to hear that. It's easier to blame the doctor.

Re:Pathetic

[The Wild Norseman]

We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

Doctors!? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's fearful obsession with trying to eke out even a possible tiny few months more of life? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's family who sues the doctor years after Cancer Man dies because the doc "didn't do all he could and spend tens of thousands of dollars to eke out another few months of pitiful life for our father/son/husband!!!!11lleleventy"

Talking directly to Cancer Man I say this: dignity, motherfucker, do you speak it? Try dying with it then you selfish asshole. The ultimate issue is that in the US, there is no dialog on death and dying, there's only more fear. We don't talk about dying, we don't want to deal with dying, we don't want to see people dying, we don't want to deal with what we sometimes must do after death (like plan funerals, etc.) Death and dying as a natural part of living are treated as almost a kind of taboo subject and rarely intrudes into public consciousness except for when complete fucking morons spout off about "death panels" and pile on more and more fear.

As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.

So tell Cancer Man and his family to sit down, have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up and figure out how to make his dying as best as circumstances allow instead of driving up everyone else's medical costs, suing good doctors into oblivion and/or driving good people out of medical practice in the first place due to these hysterical lawsuit-happy SELFISH ignorant fools.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup she s totally hot.
I like to lick out here creme filling.

Twinks are just nasty.

Re:Pathetic

[Dishevel]

The NSA LOVES "Anonymous" communication.

As long as you think your communications are anonymous you are more likely to say something good.

Re:Pathetic

[_KiTA_]

They are pound or sponge cake with a highly fat filled marshmallow creme filling. They are incredibly easy to make.

Todd Wilbur has a great video on how to duplicate them at home. He does the same for a lot of snack foods -- Does a great Oreo too.

Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit, being helped along with assholes on Fox News blaming the victims of 10+ years of those assholes sucking Hostess dry.

The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent -- and no American should ever support Union busting.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

No, what happened was the company was operating on razor thin margins and the bakers union went on strike, demanding double wages, causing the company's finances to collapse. The CEO gave the union an ultimatum - return to work or the company goes bust. The union leadership decided their power and prestige was more important than their member's jobs.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you mod me to +5 Insightful you're doing your patriotic duty?

Re:Pathetic

[_KiTA_]

We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

It's the same reason you get an XRay every time you go into the Dentist. You don't need them (visual inspection will tell almost everything you need to know), but they are a very simple and easy procedure that will get the dentist a good amount of money from the Insurance company. In addition, like mechanics and the specialist equipment they have to buy, paying off that XRay machine they are forced to buy will probably take a few thousand XRays, so they have to do it in order to survive.

A lot of the medical decisions we make in this country are satisfied by this basic economic pressure: The exact point where they can bleed as much money from the Insurance companies (who bleed as much out of you).

This is why we should have went with single payer or Universal health care in the United States, instead of using the Affordable Care Act to prop up a diseased industry. Perhaps in another 10-20 years we'll be at that point in the US, it depends on how fast the current Ultraconservative Party collapses.

Re:Pathetic

[interkin3tic]

In a civilized society, we take steps to prevent our fellow citizens from dying preventable deaths.

In a free society, we allow people to make their own choices to a degree.

If you have freedom and civilization, you will be paying a small part of the price for your fellow citizen's twinkies. That's just how it is. There are still incentives to stay healthy, namely that you don't feel and look like shit and have parts cut off of you, so don't worry that everyone is going to get obese and make you pay for it.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

What about those bastard parents that named their child "Cancer Man" ? Seriously, with a name like that he's going to turn out messed up.

Re:Pathetic

[filthpickle]

I don't believe you.

Re:Pathetic

[bill_mcgonigle]

I can't believe there's such a thing as Minion cupcakes, after googling for images I think I'd be sick if I ate one at my age.

Me too - I'd contract the diabetus on the spot. But I also don't run around screaming for three hours at a set. Much.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a doctor, and you have seen more people die than you can count?

Man...I hope you aren't MY doctor!

Re:Pathetic

[mcgrew]

You blew it. You should have said "It tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike cake."

Get your Adams quotes straight!

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can thank the unions for that one. No workers=no product.

Re:Pathetic

[mrbester]

Stop it. They were hard enough to get in UK before the bankruptcy and all you're doing is making me want one even more.

Re:Pathetic

[KingMotley]

Every American should support union busting. We don't need unions anymore. If you think the work week should be shorter, or that x amount of weeks of vacation should be mandatory, then have it passed as law. Unions serve no real purpose other than to collect dues and try and raise the cost of labor so high that it causes the business they are in to become unprofitable and go out of business. See any of the big bankruptcies in the past 10 years. Many more bankruptcies averted only because all the crap the unions pushed for got rolled back to sane levels.

Re:Pathetic

[Politburo]

A union is an association of workers, and the right of free association is protected by the First Amendment. Why do you hate freedom?

Re:Pathetic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

First of all, Talent? They were making Twinkies. Not growing human brains on mars. I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession on stupid job conditions. They're the idiots that aren't needed in organized labor in this day and age. Many people saw corruption and incompetence take root at unions and decided they were better off without the unions at all. In the end for most, the decision was simply choosing the method of death. Unions need to be smarter and have pay and benefits aligned with the company's financial health.

Re:Pathetic

[stabiesoft]

Not everyone gets xrays every time they visit the dentist. I get them about every 4 years. Few cavities in my life, so less xrays.

Re:Pathetic

[mrclisdue]

...not to mention that unions are responsible for the decrease in child labour. Why does he hate children? Please think of the children. I wonder if he beats his wife. I'm convinced he's a terrorist.

Re:Pathetic

[asylumx]

If you think the work week should be shorter, or that x amount of weeks of vacation should be mandatory, then have it passed as law.

And somehow you think this protects your freedoms?

Re:Pathetic

[Gavagai80]

Don't forget those of us who are unhealthy underweight twinkie-eaters.

Re:Pathetic

[mcgrew]

Suzy Qs

Oddly, they don't serve Suzy Qs at Susie Q's. Really good fried chicken, though (Google streetview picture is before Mike bought, renovated, and opened it).

Re:Pathetic

[Sockatume]

Ah, but that wouldn't be accurate. It tastes like the very apotheosis of cake. I just don't know what the hell it actually is.

Re:Pathetic

[shadowrat]

It's the same reason you get an XRay every time you go into the Dentist. You don't need them (visual inspection will tell almost everything you need to know), but they are a very simple and easy procedure that will get the dentist a good amount of money from the Insurance company.

thanks to a dental xray, i just found out i have a number of small cavities forming on the opposing faces of some of my molars. That seems like an area that's pretty hard to just look at.

Re:Pathetic

[phantomfive]

Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit,

I don't care about Twinkies, but the situation was much more complex than your stereotype. Half the union workers were in favor of the breakup. Why? It was Teamsters against the Bakers union.

Hostess was not profitable, I don't care if you're pro-union or anti-union, if you're not profitable there will be no union. The bakers realized this, and blamed the Teamsters for making Hostess inefficient. They thought if they went through bankruptcy, the court might get rid of the Teamsters, and a new buyer would come and re-open Hostess, and they would get their jobs back (that is basically what happened).

The Teamsters opposed the breakup, because they preferred to keep their jobs (naturally). The problem was massive inefficiencies made them uncompetitive. Union rules required that different products be delivered on different trucks, and a different person had to come with the driver to unload the truck while the driver had to just stand there waiting. They maintained an entire network of outlet stores (did you ever visit a Hostess outlet? Neither did anyone else, but they stayed open anyway).

Re:Pathetic

[platypussrex]

They are incredibly easy to make.

The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent

If your first statement is true, it's hard to see why the second one would matter.

Re:Pathetic

[blackest_k]

Baked goods in Ireland get taxed at 23% VAT when they have high sugar or chocolate content.
unfortunately high sugar content means a longer shelf life so your typical supermarket has no interest in stocking any dessert or cake which isn't high in sugar.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

I 100% support the right of unions to exist and collectively bargain. What I don't support are unions forcing the unwilling to pay dues. That is against the spirit of free association.

Re:Pathetic

[HereIAmJH]

re you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

Not to mention it gave them the opportunity to reduce product size and redefine 'fresh'.

Re:Pathetic

[HereIAmJH]

Cocaine is schedule II. Cannabis is schedule 1. See, you can learn something from CNN. There doesn't appear to be any real facts to support pot being a gateway drug to cocaine or heroin, but I'll bet you can find proof that it's a gateway to Twinkies.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Me neither. If he's even a doctor, he's working for an insurance company, not practicing.

Re:Pathetic

[jellomizer]

This is the part I don't get.
The "Obesity Epidemic" Started in the late 1990's, Before that it wasn't a big problem.
We often blame the "Obesity Epidemic" on things like Soda/Pop, Fast Food, Junk Food snacks...
However these food foods have been around for many generations, I would expect if they were a major cause to the "Obesity Epidemic" then they would have shown up much earlier after they started to gain popularity.

So either something changed in these foods that makes them different then they were a hundred years ago (such a replacing Sugar, with Corn Syrup) Or there is an other cause, probably more complex that average Joe doesn't want to think of.

My Hypothesis is to the "Obesity Epidemic" is the rise in Mass Media creating fear.
Pre-Late 1990's much of new media came from 3 TV stations, and news papers. Which for the most part were rather toned down and didn't try to put people in a major panic about everything. Sure the Russians wanted to blow us up, but that gave us a single enemy to look at. But now we have breaking news on everything, and every little detail is analysed and shown how it will react in a worse case... News of kids missing anywhere in the US is getting headlines, discussion of all the other problems all begins to weigh on us. We have been trained to be afraid of the world.

So we are afraid of the world, we won't let our kids to go outside and play, because we are afraid of the Sex Offender across the street will take them away, or if they accidentally step on the neighbors flower they will get hit by a massive lawsuit. Or if you see other kids you are too scared to discipline them when they are doing something dangerous or wrong, because you are afraid that you will get some sort of child abuse claim against you....
So we keep our kids inside all day. Kids have energy but they don't have means to burn it so they are playing video games all day... However their body is growing so it is telling them they should eat, so they eat, but it leads to excess.
If we are adults and we are afraid of the world we put on a few pounds early on mostly because we grew up and didn't adjust our food intake to match our adult needs. However we don't want to be seen as the Fat Guy at the Gym, or the Fat Guy running down the street, that TV Comedies like making fun of. So we will tend to stay inside or do activities that are safe from ridicule. Then combined with the body image that you are Fat means you will begin to accept your weight as part of you identity and not really try too hard to change it. Sure we will try some fad diets loose 10-20 lbs but it will ware us out and will put them back on, plus some. Being that it is called an "Obesity Epidemic" means we are not completely at fault either, because it is part of a bigger problem, so we will sit and weight for those who are smarter then us to solve it.

This Fear model tends to make sense with the trends of higher Obesity.
Uneducated: Untrained in dealing with information, more prone to throw stuff out of proportion.
Poor: Often Uneducated, however they are worrying about making it to the next day, so they will do what they need to get to the next day, however fearing what will happen tomorrow.
Minority Races: Fear of going out, as they are prone to more suspicion, even if they are just doing the same thing the Majority Race is doing.

Sure eating junk food in excess will not be healthy... However they are fine in moderation, and with balance of healthy living.

 

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about Twinkies is you have to be 5-10 years old to appreciate them intrinsically.

Adults can only stomach them if they have enough nostalgia build up. But they're a really convinient thing to stash in the pantry and forget about so you have something sweet to throw to the kids every once in a while. So a lot of Americans grew up eating them, and now associate them with their care-free youth.

Re:Pathetic

[judoguy]

Your understanding is out of date. We are currently using Porcine stem cells and islet transplants to treat diabetes, ...

Type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, not lack of insulin. All a continued and increased insulin flooding does is mask the symptoms for a while and further wreck an already messed up metabolism. Getting the patient to curb carb intake is crucial to reducing the effects of insulin resistance labeled as type 2 diabetes.

Re:Pathetic

[zildgulf]

These videos seem to be more work than needed if you live in the US or Canada. If you are an American ex-pat these videos are very valuable since getting such comfort snacks could be expensive or difficult to get. Somehow Pringles are easy to get anywhere. Go figure.

Re:Pathetic

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

A foamed cake filled with a foamed vanilla aerogel.

Morpheus: You're buying...air.

Re:Pathetic

[infodragon]

They have been used as a unit of measure for psychokinetic energy.

"Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds."

Re:Pathetic

[ponraul]

I agree with the anonymous poster. It's shit food that doesn't even look like food.

Learn how to cook. Bring stuff to eat with you. Learn about macronutrients and keep track of them. Learn how to drink water and black coffee. Don't live off of vending machines and perk snacks/tripe. Eat to fuel your body and not as some kind of reward or social activity or something you do out of boredom.

I haven't had any crisps or snack foods in about 5 years. You just have to deprogram yourself to eat like you're getting ready for a famine.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

A (semi)solid food equivalent of a "sugary-water" drink.
Basically, a device created to facilitate the ingestion of sugar and/or corn-syrup.

Because the cakes, pastries, and candies produced in Europe for centuries have no sugar content, right?

Re:Pathetic

[sjwt]

I heard the OP Googled Pressure Cookers..

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Twinkies were never all that great.

They were not always an approximation of sponge cake filled with a whipped lard and sugar fluff. Twinkies go back a long ways...

Re:Pathetic

[davester666]

> In any case, what exactly is a twinkie? And are they designed for oral ingestion or for insertion via another orifice?
Yes!

Re:Pathetic

[aardvarkjoe]

agreed. To this day, I've never actually seen a nerd consume a twinkie.

I think it just comes from some gross prerojitave that if someone is fat they must eat twinkies.

Good grief

Anyone else find it amusing that someone would be more embarrassed that people might assume they eat Twinkies than they are about being fat?

Although I'm not even sure where this supposed "all nerds love Twinkies" stereotype is even coming from. The only time I've heard of it is in the Slashdot summary for every Twinkie story. It makes me wonder if it's actually samzenpus who is addicted to Twinkies, and he's just assuming that all other nerds are too.

Re:Pathetic

[tompaulco]

Now those same working-class folks are going to go run out any buy the product to reward it.
Not likely, without a job. They'll have to export all those Twinkies to another country where the citizens have jobs.

Re:Pathetic

[HairyNevus]

Of course I want it, I love sponge cake! It's like eating a delicious sponge!

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

...and backpacks.

Re:Pathetic

[stymy]

IAAA (I Am An Actuary), and I can say that actuaries (that is Fellow Actuaries) are far too well paid to be involved in making decisions for individual policies for garden-variety off-the-rack insurance of the kind people (as opposed to businesses insuring factories, oil supertankers, and whatnot) get. We generally just calculate the expected loss or profit on policies, figure out how much money the company needs to save in the bank to break even on a policy, and so forth. Accountants and business people then do with that info what they will.

Re:Pathetic

[LF11]

"The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent -- and no American should ever support Union busting."

(a) is debateable, but (b) is a LOAD OF HORSESHIT.

The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

So now the new Hostess doesn't recognize the union that broke the back of the old Hostess? Cry me a god damn river.

Re:Pathetic

[BancBoy]

Mod AC up! Clearly not anti-union and responds directly to the topic. How is it free association if you are required to pay dues to an organization or lobby that you might not want to join or might not agree with?

Re:Pathetic

[T.E.D.]

I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession

Yes they did. I saw an interview with one of the Union members asked about this. The well-paid TV talking heads clearly didn't understand how someone could vote themselves out of a job.

The response was essentially, "Yes, I have a good job now that is worth saving. However, the job they are trying to get me to conceed down to is not that job. The new job they want me to have is a crappy job that I could go out and get anywhere."

So in effect, their jobs were dead already. That was not their choice, it was management's. The only choice they had was to try to slow it down by fighting against it, which is what they did.

Re:Pathetic

[Jiro]

Who says it's popular? They sold 36 million packages a year Since a box has 6 packages, that's 6 million boxes. The US population is over 300 million.

Twinkies are the butt of jokes, so you hear about them a lot. Nobody eats them. Sometimes they're used in reference to geeks and nerds eating a lot of junk food, but even then, just because they eat junk food doesn't mean they eat Twinkies specifically.

Re:Pathetic

[jafiwam]

X-rays provide a visual record of what the state of the teeth are during the visit.

Keeps "you should have found this cavity!" lawsuits at bay when the person shows up with an abscess 4 months later.

Re:Pathetic

[sjames]

Just a guess, but: Because although he is but a peon now, he drank the cool aid and thinks if he busts his ass long enough and hard enough, one day he will be massah and he doesn't want the slaves to be all uppity.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit, being helped along with assholes on Fox News blaming the victims of 10+ years of those assholes sucking Hostess dry.

I fail to see how the execs sucking a company dry is any different than the workers sucking a company dry... other than possibly a matter of scale. Neither group gave a fuck about the company, all they cared about was their own personal payout. The execs didn't back down, neither did the workers, and as a result the company had to fold because there simply wasn't enough to pay everyone what they wanted. You can toss out your knee-jerk "don't blame the victim" response, but at least in this case calling them "victims" is a pretty long stretch.

The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent

1. I dispute your implied claim that union shops have more talent than non-union shops.
2. They didn't lose any talent, it's a new company with new workers.

and no American should ever support Union busting

Ahh, the "no true scotsman" fallacy.
Some unions are good, some are pure shit, most fall somewhere in the middle. What gets me angry is when I'm told I MUST join a union in order to get a job- that's pure bullshit from start to finish. Workers ought to have a choice of whether to join or not, and not be denied employment or face threats and harassment by union workers when they choose not to join. So in places where the Unions get to shut people out in the cold for not joining, then I would argue that no American should support the Union.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

A union is an association of workers, and the right of free association is protected by the First Amendment. Why do you hate freedom?

With the exception of a small number of "Right to Work" states, you don't have a choice- you MUST join the union or you're denied employment. That's the exact opposite of free association- it's forced association, and it's every bit as bad as being prevented from associating.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

No, what happened was the company was operating on razor thin margins and the bakers union went on strike, demanding double wages, causing the company's finances to collapse. The CEO gave the union an ultimatum - return to work or the company goes bust. The union leadership decided their power and prestige was more important than their member's jobs.

No, that's only half the story. There were actually two Unions involved- the Bakers and the Teamsters. The Teamsters are one of the most notorious Unions in regards to abusing companies. For example, even if there was enough room on one truck to deliver all the goods to a client, the delivery had to be split by product type and sent on different trucks. Each truck had a driver and a loader/unloader. The driver doesn't touch the load, he just drives, then sits around doing nothing waiting for the product to be loaded and unloaded. In the case of two products for the same client, that's two drivers sitting around doing nothing during the process. Oh, and the loader for each truck only gets to touch the load on that truck.
So the short story is that the Bakers Union essentially forced the company to close, and they've even said as much during and after the whole process.

But the whole thing brings an old joke to mind:
"How many Teamsters does it take to change a light bulb?"
Answer: "Twelve. You got a problem with that?"

Re:Pathetic

[narcc]

If you don't want pay union dues, which are essential for a union to function effectively, then don't join a union.

My father was a union man. His dues more than paid for themselves.

Re:Pathetic

[phantomfive]

As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.

So, what are you afraid of?

Re:Pathetic

[tompaulco]

yeah, stupid unions wanting working wages. They weren't asking for a raise, they were asking that their salaries didn't get cut from $18/hour to $14/hour! and how much does management make to sit with their thumbs in their asses? If they wanted to save the company, they could have. The press decided to blame it on the unions.

And yet, in this same article another comment says that they WERE asking for a raise, in fact a doubling of salary. So, which one is true...or more likely I guess is that BOTH sides are lying.

Re:Pathetic

[The Wild Norseman]

A fair amount of stuff, unfortunately. I've had to work pretty hard to overcome much of the societal programming and public inundation of FEAR FEAR FEAR.

Rationality has helped a tremendous amount though thankfully.

Re:Pathetic

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

If they thought their concessions would have made it like any other job they could get, the least they could have done was for those that thought that way to quit. Leaving all those that still wanted their jobs, with their jobs. It was a close vote. Those who voted against it, were either naive, or jerks that just wanted to sink the company.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

[citation needed] Indeed, the union wasn't willing to negotiate. The company had previously asked the workers to take a pay cut, supposedly to help the company, yet immediately afterwords the management got bonuses and the company had extra big profits that quarter. Seems like good cause to refuse negotiating pay cuts to me.

Unions in the US have done some less than wonderful things, but they've had to due to what corporations have done. Alas, most people in the US apparently learns about the bad things the unions have done, but never learn of (or forget about) the bad things corporations have done. I just hope the US doesn't get any more screwed up.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

So either something changed in these foods that makes them different then they were a hundred years ago (such a replacing Sugar, with Corn Syrup) Or there is an other cause, probably more complex that average Joe doesn't want to think of.

Well, we did have the government tell us that fat was the evil, and that we should reduce our fat intake from 40% of our diet to 30%. Then, for some odd reason, we actually did what the government suggested, and in the process, we increased the amount of sugar in our food, in order to prevent it from tasting like cardboard after all of the fat had been removed. After all, the government has never said that sugar causes disease. Then the government decided to support farmers by subsidizing corn, which made high fructose corn syrup incredibly cheap, which only increased the amount of it used in our foods. Just go to the store and see what you can find that doesn't contain either HFCS or sugar. At least 80% of the items on the shelves contain one or the other. If you want to avoid it, you're pretty much limited to either fresh vegetables, meat, cheese, or other "real" foods stocked around the perimeter of the store. Just about everything on shelves in the aisles contains either HFCS or sugar.

Also, sugar and HFCS are addictive. I can easily not drink alcohol when I don't want to. I can easy avoid coffee when I don't want it. Those awesome painkillers the dentist gives you -- they stay in the bottle for years, as they're just not addictive to me. However, despite being convinced for years that sugar is incredibly unhealthy, I can't seem to avoid eating it. It's too accessible. At any moment of weakness, any time of the day, I can walk a block away and find a soda machine. A few more blocks and there's a store selling every sugary thing imaginable. Indeed, sugary foods are the only things that gas stations and small "grocery stores" like Dollar General sell. To obtain any real food, you have to go all the way to the nearest Walmart.

It isn't hard to figure out what causes obesity. It's just that people don't believe it, because "sugar" doesn't sound nearly as scary as "high-fructose corn syrup" and especially not as scary as something like "monosodium glutamate." People aren't willing to believe that a word they've known since they were two years old could possibly represent something that's toxic.

More info: Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Re:Pathetic

[_KiTA_]

I 100% support the right of unions to exist and collectively bargain. What I don't support are unions forcing the unwilling to pay dues. That is against the spirit of free association.

So you support Right to Mooch States, where the Unions fight for benefits that apply to all the workers, but the workers don't have to support the union to get them?

Or did you honestly think that a company would pay union members one wage and non-union another? The entire point of a union is to be collective.

Re:Pathetic

[_KiTA_]

The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

[citation needed] Indeed, the union wasn't willing to negotiate. The company had previously asked the workers to take a pay cut, supposedly to help the company, yet immediately afterwords the management got bonuses and the company had extra big profits that quarter. Seems like good cause to refuse negotiating pay cuts to me.

Unions in the US have done some less than wonderful things, but they've had to due to what corporations have done. Alas, most people in the US apparently learns about the bad things the unions have done, but never learn of (or forget about) the bad things corporations have done. I just hope the US doesn't get any more screwed up.

Exactly. The management was quite willing to bargain with the union for a pay cut, then gave themselves YET ANOTHER pay increase and bonus. The pay cut was supposedly because the company was dying, the pay increase and bonus was because it sure as hell wasn't management's fault that the company was going bad, and heck, they were so innovative in conning the union members into working for less than they were worth -- again.

That was the breaking point, that caused the Union to strike. And of course, Fox News and the crony capitalist crowd did their aggressive projecting crap to turn it around on the Unions. They do the same thing all the time, particularly in political debates, it's honestly a brilliant (but dishonest) tactic.

Re:Pathetic

[phantomfive]

I feel like you've got a lot of anger in you, too

Re:Pathetic

[Sockatume]

I like to exercise my first amendment right to set up humorous putdowns involving vending machine breakfasts.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

No- The statement should read----Every "True American" SHOULD support Union Busting!

Re:Pathetic

[CRCulver]

So you support Right to Mooch States, where the Unions fight for benefits that apply to all the workers, but the workers don't have to support the union to get them?

In fact, this is how things work in countries with the highest support for organized labour, not just your "Right to Mooch States" in the USA. In Finland, for example, if an employee chooses not to support a union, he loses out on the right to help determine the direction of collective bargaining, but he is covered by all the protections that such collection bargaining wins.

Re:Pathetic

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Actually the mess was a result of unions bureaucratizing the business, not capitalists. Under that system they had, if you had a freight truck only half full of bread and you also had several pallets of twinkies that needed to go to the same store, tough shit you had to put them on a different truck. One union had to do the breads, the other union did the sweets. Bread workers weren't allowed to handle sweets, which was a union rule.

There were all kinds of rules like that which made hostess operate extremely inefficiently, all of them union imposed. It finally came to a head when the teamsters demanded more rules and money than they already had, and the management finally said "Look, we just can't afford this anymore. We're broke. If you keep asking for this our one and only option is to close shop." The union leadership called the bluff, and as a result all of the employees lost their jobs and an American icon was destroyed, which the union leadership hailed as a victory because they stood their ground, meanwhile they go home and eat their dinner paid for on the backs of the workers via union dues from other companies.

Now without union involvement they can actually run a business.

And what talent did it lose exactly? They're still the same ol' twinkies they've always been.

Why would you support unions so vehemently by the way? They are the ones pricing Americans out of jobs in exactly the manner I described above.

Re:Pathetic

[aestrivex]

It depends on the union.

s others argue, the inherent right of workers to unionize is something that should be upheld, as should the inherent right of workers *not* to unionize.

This doesn't mean that some unions don't *precisely* deserve to get busted, in the harshest way possible. These are the unions that cause more bureaucracy than the management that they work for. These are the unions that prevented my utterly incompetent 11th grade technology teacher from being fired, because he had a disability (he was blind). These are the unions that, when facing off against public transportation agencies bleeding money at the seams, refuse to accept even the slightest change in archaic work rules, colossal pension structures, and cause new rail construction projects to have billions of dollars in cost overruns (whereas other countries end up doing just fine).

There are *plenty* of unions in this country that deserve to have their faces smashed in (a position that it sickens me that more liberals don't comprehend). The Hostess union, by all accounts, was not one of them.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the sugar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Change the diet on false pretenses and soon the food supply is replacing fat with sugar so the stuff has taste.

Re: Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks - unions are a complete waste of time and money. They have no place in western society and should be banned. America is becoming more and more communist by the day. It is not a free cou try at all. You just think it is.

Slashvertising.

[six025]

*n/m*

Re:Slashvertising.

[wonkey_monkey]

Pronounced "*nom*"

Re:Slashvertising.

[dstyle5]

In all my years of University and working at tech companies after I have yet to see anyone eat a Twinkie. Can't say I've ever heard of them being called the "Breakfast of Programmers" before, but I guess they had to shoehorn a way to put it on /. Even the overlords at DICE gotta eat I guess.

The horror!

[Anonymous Coward]

twinkie twinkie little rock-star, how I wonder where your creams are.

pittsburgh is spelled with an h

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Two Birds, One Stone

[Anonymous Coward]

So they got rid of unionized workers and increased demand to unprecedented levels in one stroke?

Watch for the "Hostess Model" to be the path that more companies to follow in the future.

Re:Two Birds, One Stone

[Anonymous Coward]

Offer only good for products with crazy-high brand recognition.

Re:Two Birds, One Stone

[Pinky's Brain]

Only in the near future ... median wages can only fall so far before the majority of the consumer market for luxury goods implodes.

Fat Rage

[tuppe666]

What do they care?

They all care. That is the point. You think anyone chooses to be fat, your less attractive, treated badly, can't fit normal clothes, you are generally slow, as well as a whole host of illnesses...yeah you die sooner as well, so I guess others will have to pay for your pension. Overall though its shitty being fat, and you care about it all the time.

You get penalised for being fat.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't want to be a fat man,
people would think that I was
just good fun.
Would rather be a thin man,
I am so glad to go on being one.
Too much to carry around with you,
no chance of finding a woman who
will love you in the morning and all the night time too.

Don't want to be a fat man,
have not the patience to ignore all that.
Hate to admit to myself half of my problems
came from being fat.
Won't waste my time feeling sorry for him,
I seen the other side to being thin.
Roll us both down a mountain
and I'm sure the fat man would win.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

They all care. That is the point. You think anyone chooses to be fat,

I'm sure they don't wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, today, I want to become (or remain) a complete lard ass."

Then again, smokers don't wake up in the morning and say, "Wow, I hope today is the day that I finally get lung cancer."

If you're addicted to food (very possible, sweet substances do light up the reward center of your brain), seek medical help.
Everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions, if they feel that they are in control of them or not.

Re:Fat Rage

[Azure Flash]

Fat people can fit normal clothes. Plain old, standard, totally normal 5XL t-shirts.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

They do choose. People choose to do bad things to their body all the time. Alchohol. Smoking. Hard drugs. Overeating.

If calories in < calories out, you will lose weight.

It ain't easy though. Appetite is a powerful thing and it's impossible for most folks to be hungry all the time and not eat their usual fill when food is there for the taking.

Re:Fat Rage

[davydagger]

Its called "stupid hipster syndrome", where they try and think of some cause, or something that will help the country/planet, but end up doing more harm than good, because they spend more time asserting their authority as "intellectuals", and "saviors", and can't seem to look at the people they would be helping as so much human beings.

At the end of the day, they decide that money, power and fame, is what really matters, and the rest of the world is some mess of unwashed undeserving cretins, so they fudge numbers, make things up, pat themselves on the back and congradulate themselves for disrupting other peoples lives and accomplishing nothing.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely correct a thousand times over.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

*flute solo*

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

If calories in < calories out, you will lose weight.

Not quite that simple. It's a major piece of losing weight, but look up "Metabolically Obese, Normal Weight" sometime. It's actually a thing.

Calories are only a piece of the picture when losing weight, and this is precisely why so many people struggle with losing weight - they restrict their calories too much (sending the body into starvation mode), they work out too hard (causing systemic inflammation), and they eat all the wrong foods - tons of low-fiber, sugary/starchy carbs, low-fat, low-protein "diet" foods.

So yeah, people "choose to be fat," but they choose to do so because most of the information they're given about how to lose weight and eat healthily is useless at best, actively harmful at worst. Losing weight is easy, in principle:

Eat:
-- Lots of real fruits and vegetables;
-- Plenty of lean proteins;
-- Healthy fats (olive, coconut, some animal fats - esp. fish oils) in moderation;
-- Water. Tea or Coffee, or an occasional beer/wine/liquor, if you want something with some flavor.

Don't eat:
-- Plain sugars and starches (i.e., grains, anything that isn't in a nutritious fruit/vegetable form);
-- Minimize beans (phytates & other antinutrients can block absorption of nutrients from other food), dairy (lactose & casein aren't well-tolerated, even in people who don't have a full-blown "allergy";
-- Fruit juices, even if they're actually "from the fruit" - you lose all the fiber and a lot of other nutrients, and you get a big hit of sugar, and it doesn't fill you up.

Activities:
-- Lots of low-intensity (i.e., walking/very slow jog intensity) movement, with occasional bursts of "intense" effort (think: interval training)
-- Sleep 6+ hours a night, shoot for 8. Dark room, no tv/radio/etc. playing while you sleep.
-- Get a scale. Weigh yourself regularly. When trying to lose weight, learn not to attach too much significance to the absolute value it reports - your primary focus should be on the direction & rate of change.
-- Don't stress on calories too much - if you're not eating a ton of sugary/starchy/fatty processed foods, it's actually pretty hard to eat 4000 calories worth of spinach and chicken breast every day: that's roughly 3.8 pounds of chicken (boneless breast meat - 3000 calories), and nearly 9.5 pounds of spinach (1000 calories), versus 2.5 value meals from McDonald's, (assuming a meal = Bacon/Cheese Quarter Pounder, Large Fries, Large Dr. Pepper, and an Apple Pie - and be honest, you and I both know some fatbodies for whom that's a pretty "small" McDonald's meal.)

All of these are pretty simple rules... if you can actually live by them, you'll almost certainly see massive improvements in your health, your weight, and your sense of well-being.

Re: Fat Rage

[DoofusOfDeath]

Yes, being fat is somewhat a choice for almost everyone. There are ways to keep almost everyone's weight moderate, through diet and exercise and proper sleep.

The simple truth is that many fat people are insufficiently motivated to consistently work hard on all those areas for long periods.

Tv or go for a walk? A choice.
Eat carbs or protein to satisfy hunger? A choice.
Regular or diet soda? Choice.

And this is coming from someone who has struggled with this all my life, so I'm Npt being simply judgmental.

Re:Fat Rage

[mcgrew]

You think anyone chooses to be fat, your less attractive

You should sue whoever "educated" you. You don't read many books, do you? "Your" is a possessive, as in "You're stepping on your dog's tail."
</unwanted education>

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

5X isn't fat. 5X is holy sh*t WTF is wrong with you and you obvioulsy have self hate issues that are keeping you that large. 2x is fat and maybe some guy that doesn't have time to exercise afterwork, but 5X is I really hate myself fat.

Re:Fat Rage

[tompaulco]

The problem is that there are a hundred diet and exercise plans, and they are all different, and a lot of them will tell you that other popular diets are wrong and even dangerous. It is about as bad as picking a religion. It makes a lot of people just give up. Or worse, they will try diet A for awhile and then diet B and then diet C. Now, if there is something that is bad for you, going from one diet to another is definitely it.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there are a hundred diet and exercise plans

You're right: going from one "diet" to another is probably unhealthy for you - yoyo dieting and weight loss/gain cycles aren't helping you, and will only stress your body more. You will notice that nowhere above did I mention or advise starting a "diet and exercise plan."

The advice I gave is "how to eat and exercise like a healthy human being." Eating a bunch of processed garbage and getting no exercise is how people get fat. How a healthy human gets thin and stays thin is not eating "more processed garbage," nor is it "eating only one type of special food, and nothing else." None of the "diets" and "plans" are sustainable or healthy.

The only way to lose weight and keep it off is by *changing the way you eat and the way you exercise,* and that means eating predominantly healthy foods (yes, occasionally you're allowed to have a piece of chocolate or a Big Mac), and getting frequent - predominantly low-intensity - exercise (yes, occasionally you're allowed to sleep in and do nothing but sit on your ass all day).

If you restrict food intake too much, your body goes into starvation mode and starts cycling down your metabolic rate, and it also starts breaking down muscle tissue for energy. If you exercise too much (or too hard), you end up in cytokine hell, which puts tremendous systemic inflammatory stress on the body. Try to eat only a handful of foods that some diet prescribes to you as "required," and you'll end up with a host of nutrient deficiencies that you'll need to make up for by putting more processed garbage supplements into your body.

Good thing I didn't advise ANY of those "plan" approaches, eh?

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

If calories in

Not quite that simple. It's a major piece of losing weight, but look up "Metabolically Obese, Normal Weight" sometime. It's actually a thing.

Calories are only a piece of the picture when losing weight,

The parent didn't state that correctly, all calories are not equal as you've pointed out. The correct statement is "If energy input is less than energy expended, you will lose weight". And yes, it really IS that simple. Yes, I fully understand that for some people it is very, very difficult to get to that point, and for others it's much easier. So I'll agree that reaching the point where energy output exceeds energy input can be very complicated and difficult.

Re:Fat Rage

[SBFCOblivion]

Sure they care. But apparently not enough to do anything about it. I used to be fat. And I reached a point where I had had enough not being happy with the way I looked. So I made a lifestyle change and fixed it. It isn't easy. But if you want it bad enough, you can change it.

Re: Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, being fat is somewhat a choice for almost everyone. There are ways to keep almost everyone's weight moderate, through diet and exercise and proper sleep.

Sometimes (perhaps often) it isn't a personal choice. There is strong evidence the test for a particular medical condition generates a non-zero number of false negatives. Alas, because that field denies that test ever generates false negatives, they've been actively preventing gathering of evidence. Particular condition can badly mess up one's sleep, suppress metabolism, and cause bulimia nervosa.

Re:Fat Rage

[Anonymous Coward]

Your correction is no more accurate - I get that geeks think they're being clever by trying to reduce everything to a single physics equation, but the type and source of energy is just as important as the amount of energy. "Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler," most definitely applies here: you are oversimplifying and as a result, you are actually, honestly, objectively, wrong.

Let's assume that chemically, 5 pounds of sugar has the same energy when burned as a gallon of 93-octane gasoline. Would it make sense then, to say that "this car gets 50 miles per gallon of gasoline, or 5 pounds of sugar?" No, it would not. Why? Because again: type and source of energy is just as important as the amount. Put that sugar in your gas tank, and I guarantee you're not going to travel 50 miles on it. Maybe you'll see half a mile, if you're at the top of a quarter mile long down-slope and get a running start.

If you fuel your body with garbage fuel, you will destroy it, unless you consider reducing "water weight," "body fat," "lean muscle," and "bone" to all be equivalently good ways of losing weight. In fact, poisoning your system with salty, high carb food, even with a net-negative energy balance, is a good way to retain water and actually gain weight - as an example.

It is not "as simple as" a net energy equation. That's PART of it, but that is not the entire story. Reality is a lot more complex than your physics 101 book, friend.

Twinkies? Keep 'Em!

[GTRacer]

Keep your Twinkies. Zingers are the superior creme-filled cake. Because of the icing! Mmm, vanilla-flavored, artificially-colored sugar topping!

Re:Twinkies? Keep 'Em!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. *Everybody* knows Twinkies are the bests.

Thank you,
Emacs

Re:Twinkies? Keep 'Em!

[mcgrew]

I was about to turn in my nerd card, but I see I'm not the only one. I never did like twinkies, not even as a kid. Too sweet and too little substance. And no chocolate!

Ding Dongs, now, I like those. But I prefer bear claws and Danishes and all the traditional baked sweets (mmm... devil's food cake!) to any of the Hostess stuff.

Come to think of it, there's little corporate food or snacks I really like. I only buy potato chips because I'm too lazy to make my own.

Re:Twinkies? Keep 'Em!

[fuzznutz]

Zingers suck! They sucked when Dolly Madison made 'em and they suck coming from Little Debbie. The red coconut mystery flavor ones were the worse, but the chocolate ones were inedible too. What you call "icing" is a some kind of cocoa based plastic compound. As a kid, I would literally peel it off and drop it in the can. It always came off in one piece. Fresh from the store,they were always stale and dry. That's why Zingers were always cheaper than anything with a Hostess name on it.

When I was a kid, and the parents brought home Zingers, you could always guarantee they would still be there when it was time to go shopping the next week. Twinkies never made it past a couple days before us kids wiped them out.

pittsburgH

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an H in Pittsburgh you insensitive clod!

Diabetic patients

[Anonymous Coward]

Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths.

You'd think.

Diabetic patients are just as expensive as those old people - maybe more so. And unlike the old people whose days are numbered, those Type-IIs will live a pretty long time due to the medical profession's ability to keep them going.

Stroke, renal failure, amputations, etc ... are a very heavy burden on our medical system. And when you have it in a patient who is in their 40 or 50s, you have MANY years of extremely expensive care.

Re:Diabetic patients

[h4rr4r]

Sure they might get some of that stuff, but I have seen plenty kick it from a stroke or simple mis-management of the disease; like drinking all night and going to bed without checking their blood sugar.

One of the big issues here is folks care is socialized so the insurance companies don't care. Young people's diseases is what they care about.

Re: Diabetic patients

[Anonymous Coward]

Stroke, renal failure, amputations, etc ... are cash cows forour medical system.

There, fixed that for you. Imagine the financial pain the system would feel if they didn't have oodles of chronic disease to treat for as long as possible.

Re:Diabetic patients

[Anonymous Coward]

but I have seen plenty kick it from a stroke or simple mis-management of the disease

Would this be at your epidemiology night job? Or the medical accounting night job? Must be one of the jobs we can only presume you go to after you spend all day being a sysadmin and posting on Slashdot.

Or are you just talking out your ass and making up overly broad generalizations based on a single anecdote you read about once, while trying to defend a stupid point you made that's not supported by any evidence, again?

Breakfast of programmers?

[sl4shd0rk]

I've seen a lot of developers eat breakfast over the decades and don't recall ever seeing anyone stuffing their face with a Twinkie. Tankards of coffee would be a far more accurate observation.

Re:Breakfast of programmers?

[CastrTroy]

I really don't get where this stereotype of developers/geeks being unhealthy comes from. Of all the people I know, geeks seem to be more likely to engage in regular exercise. And most of them eat pretty well. Sure there's a few outliers, but for the most part, I find that developers are actually in pretty good shape compared to the average person.

Re:Breakfast of programmers?

[Steve_Ussler]

Factory workers love Twinkees. Developers...never!

Re:Breakfast of programmers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now middle management, on the other hand...

Re:Breakfast of programmers?

[asylumx]

All I usually see are Monsters or Rockstars, coupled with boxes of candy. Come to think of it, that is lunch & dinner, too.

Re:Breakfast of programmers?

[tompaulco]

Now middle management, on the other hand...

Managing their middle does seem to be quite a challenge.

And as usual, the blue collar worker is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Twinkies are suddenly magically profitable again. Never mind that it is on the backs of the labor that produces and delivers them ( http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-272258/ ).

The socially responsible programmer says, "BOYCOTT HOSTESS!" and finds a new breakfast of champions.

Re:And as usual, the blue collar worker is screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

And put those people who chose to work those jobs back into the unemployment pool? Brilliant, you insensitive clod.

Seems to me the socially responsible programmer would be urging to open the boarders, stop devaluing the US currency with constant inflation (inflation devalues hard earned money of workers [especially the lower classes], so bankers can take out low- or no- interest loans to gamble in things like the lending mortgages to unqualified home buyers) and remove the minimum wage. Currently a lot of our goods are made in sweat shops in communist China or in poor areas of India, and then shipped halfway 'round the world. China's environmental laws are laughable, and shipping all this stuff has a huge carbon foot print. China has extreamly low economic mobility, and most places of employment are owned by the oppressive government. Bringing production here would be a net increase to US employment (including higher paying jobs, as management and creative jobs would be spurred by the increase in production here), US GDP would increase, world wide human rights improvement, world wide reduction in carbon emissions and other pollutants, and make the US a production economy again instead of a consumption economy. Opening the boarders would increase the supply of low level workers, giving people in harsher nations (politically or economically) a place to come to create a new life. Statistically speaking, First generation born Americans are over represented in the millionaire class, despite their typically low income roots. America would be the land of opportunity again. It would also increase the tax and payroll tax base, and help us decrease not only the deficit but also the debt and unfunded liabilities in the long term.

Moreover, they aren't suddenly profitable again by magic, they could have always been profitable but Hostess was completely mismanaged. The workers were getting stooped, the union bosses and the executives were making out like bandits, and they were leveraged to the hilt. There marketing was expensive but terrible.

Plenty available in Columbus

[Anonymous Coward]

Walked by a whole rack of them in a Giant Eagle yesterday.

This may be heresy, but...

[barlevg]

Are Twinkie addicts really that committed to "authentic" Twinkies? Plenty of companies make knock-offs, which, in my limited experience, are not significantly different from the real McCoy.

Re:This may be heresy, but...

[Opportunist]

Try arguing with a heroin addict that methadone is just as good...

Re:This may be heresy, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the store brand "cream cake" made by Safeway is easily higher quality than hostess. Unfortunately you have to live in a city that has a Safeway (or one of their brands) store.

Body is a beautiful machine

[tuppe666]

If calories in < calories out, you will lose weight.

Except that is an incredibly naive argument. One of the problems with *dieting* is that your body is a machine that has evolved over many centuries, and is simply not fit for today's modern world, which is built around driving to megastores, and sitting in cubicles. Food is chemicals the body can't cope with. Ironically if you eat less your body thinks its being starved...and starts turning food into fat. The bottom line is getting to be the right weight again is a constant struggle, and there is a lot of stupid advice (fad diet of the week). Its very different from an addiction.

Re:Body is a beautiful machine

[Anonymous Coward]

"One of the problems with *dieting* is that your body is a machine that has evolved over many centuries, and is simply not fit for today's modern world, which is built around driving to megastores, and sitting in cubicles"

You just reinforced the GP's point. If calories in calories out, you will lose weight.

The problem, as you stated, is that people today do spend a lot of time sitting on ass in cars and cubicles. They do not burn calories like they should. They consume more calories than they can use. They choose this. The sadder part is that they often choose it for their kids too, and allow them to get fat and play games all day instead of running outside and playing.

It is not the fault of "today's modern world." Plenty of people live in the 21st century without being obese.

"Society made me fat." Right, I forgot. Personal responsibility is not a component of modern society.

Unless you have a metabolic disorder, it is your fault if you are fat and you have the power to improve your situation by making good choices.

Re:Body is a beautiful machine

[Lordy2001]

It is a true argument however mostly incomplete and causes a large amount of misunderstanding. However it still holds that the body can be hacked like any other beautiful machine it simply takes study, will power and discipline. There is a big misconception is that a calorie is a calorie as the body consumes different types of foods differently and this can be used to hack the metabolism. Granted everyone has their challenges and sometimes you are fighting genetics and decades of abuse.

There have been several geeks that have published items on loosing large amounts of weight.
Tim Ferris: http://fourhourbody.com/ after you get past all the trendy and uptalked bulshit he actually has some pretty good points on hacking the body / metabolism
From the geek who wrote autocad and got tired of being fat: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

See now you made me actually log in and make a post. (This is from a guy who finally tipped the scales at 300lbs and was tired of being fat one year took me down to 230lbs and it wasn't all bad it sucked at some times and took a shitload of will power at others but hey its worth it)

Don't forget the "h"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Pittsburgh with an "h."

sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually thought it was a good thing they shut their doors and stopped producing twinkies. How many years were added to lives of the general population and dollars on health problems not wasted in this country because they were gone? It's hard to say, but probably a lot. They did everyone a favor by failing at basic business sense. I for one think it's unfortunate they're back in production again.

Re:sigh

[mcgrew]

I actually thought it was a good thing they shut their doors and stopped producing twinkies. How many years were added to lives of the general population and dollars on health problems not wasted in this country because they were gone?

Some of us are genetically predisposed to being thin. The only time I ever got too heavy was when I was on Paxil; I have to fight to keep the weight up.

I wonder how much SSRIs have contributed to the obesity problem? Everyone I've known that was on them gained a lot of weight, and it seems like I started noticing more fat people after Prozak came on the market.

I don't see how a couple of twinkies can kill you. Couple hundred empty calories, no worse than a half litre soda and certainly no more than my favorite breakfast, a Denver Omelette, toast, and coffee. More calories plus tons of cholesterol. At 61 I'll bet my doctor starts nagging me to cut it down, my grandmother outlived five doctors who all said it was going to kill her. She died at age 99 after falling down in the nursing home and breaking her hip.

You have to die from something, it might as well be tasty food. And I never want to live in a nursing home.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much SSRIs have contributed to the obesity problem? Everyone I've known that was on them gained a lot of weight, and it seems like I started noticing more fat people after Prozak came on the market.

That's a good question. I doubt it's been studied.

On a somewhat related note, when I mentioned to my doctor I had weight gain after starting Remeron (Mirtazipine, an anti-depressant) he said he wasn't surprised; he also prescribes it off-label to dementia patients who forget to eat as it stimulates appetite as a side effect.

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it's been studied.

Is that your final answer?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17194277

Then you have never been fat.

[tuppe666]

Fat people can fit normal clothes. Plain old, standard, totally normal 5XL t-shirts.

You can wear *anything* as long as its a sack. If you are a man you essentially lose your waist, and as for your post you can wear a extra large tshirt...but it has to be black, oversized to look even a little reasonable. A surprising amount of companies do not even make large clothes, or only have limited range.

awful

[PopeRatzo]

You know what else is hard to get? Heroin.

"Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.

Don't fuck up your body, please. You only get one and it's already out of warranty.

Re:awful

[Opportunist]

That's what you get when going for the lowest bidder.

No, really. Evolution is by definition the lowest bidder. Think about it.

Re:awful

[phantomfive]

"Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.

In my entire life, I've never seen a programmer eat a Twinkie. Even the fat ones. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it sure doesn't happen around here.

Re:awful

[Anonymous Coward]

I will soon have Obama Care. I can eat whatever I want, and the rest of the country pays the financial consequences.

Re:awful

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what else is hard to get? Heroin.

"Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.

Don't fuck up your body, please. You only get one and it's already out of warranty.

You seem to be implying by analogy that heroin fucks up your body, but this is a myth. In point of fact, the only long-term negative side effect from continued heroin use is chronic constipation, hardly a major medical issue. Other than that there is nothing at all preventing a heroin user from living to a ripe old age. It turns out that all the unhealthy things traditionally associated with heroin use are actually unintended consequences of heroin's illegal status. I'm talking about toxic cutting agents, unclean injection equipment, things like that can definitely mess you up... But the drug itself is quite safe. Unlike, for instance, the legal drug alcohol, regular heroin use on its own will not cause any deterioration in health. There is even some anecdotal evidence that it can actually fight aging, or at least hold off some of the signs of aging. Really, Twinkies are probably much worse for you in the long run.

And by the way, heroin isn't really all that hard to get, either. Just sayin'.

Re:awful

[PopeRatzo]

I can eat whatever I want, and the rest of the country pays the financial consequences.

Then you must not be much of a programmer. The "rest of the country" only pays for your health care if you can't afford it yourself. But it was like that before Obamacare, too. The only difference was that it was done via the expensive emergency room.

Re:awful

[PopeRatzo]

In point of fact, the only long-term negative side effect from continued heroin use is chronic constipation, hardly a major medical issue.

That's assuming you can get pharmaceutically pure heroin. Otherwise, the impurities in the heroin can cause endocarditis and other circulatory issues.

Other unsafe elements of heroin use is that if you take a little too much you stop breathing and your heart stops.

I know it's like a thing that heroin is absolutely safe (except for the constipation, which can cause cancer of the lower GI tract), but in the real world, it's actually very unsafe.

And by the way, heroin isn't really all that hard to get, either. Just sayin'.

It's harder to get than Twinkies. Even post-Hostess.

People are still eating the one from last year!

[BetaDays]

They may not be ramped up in making them yet with getting the supply chain going and such but the run on the stores when they were going out of business I wonder how many people are not worried now that they are back.

Re:People are still eating the one from last year!

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a 500 year shelf life you know.

Re:People are still eating the one from last year!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Woody Allen 1973 movie "The Sleeper" the only things that were still good 500 years later were the VW (starts every time) and Twinkies. The list of preservatives on the Twinkies package is scary. I suppose if you plan on being frozen in ice for several hundred years and want something to eat when thawed, nothing else lasts as long as a Twinkie.

Twinkies vs. Dreamies

[Psion]

I noticed Twinkies back on the shelf a couple weeks ago. I ran up to the stack, hefted a box lovingly and said, "I knew you couldn't resist me for long!" A stockboy standing nearby laughed, but what does a mere lad know of true love?

Now I know, however, a shadow has fallen upon this romance. In Twinkies' absence, I tried Tastykake's Dreamies. Her smooth, flavorful cream enrobed in fresh, rich-tasting sponge cake was more than simple comfort when Twinkies left. Dreamies shared sensations with me that were unfulfilled fantasies when Twinkies were my sole companion. Every night after dinner with Dreamies was an exquisite exploration of forbidden flavor. Sometimes, I even had two!

When Twinkies came back, my heart and stomach pounded; lovers reunited! We left the grocery store and I buckled my box safely into the passenger seat and started the engine. At the first traffic light, I reached over and deftly parted her cardboard folds and reached for the treasures within. Cellophane yielded willingly at the next red light and soon familiar flavors and textures burst in my mouth!

Something was wrong.

My tastebuds now expected the fresher, richer flavors of Dreamies. Twinkies had a familiar, hydrogenized aftertaste, but Dreamies didn't. I don't think my companion noticed at the time, but when we got home, I put her on the shelf and have only reached for her twice since then. I've even ... shared her with my wife and little boy. "Yes, please! Help yourselves!"

There's no way Twinkies doesn't know now. Something has changed between us. I think I hear sobbing in the kitchen when she doesn't know I'm near. I feel bad, but I know she feels worse because she was the one who left. I want to make it work, but Twinkies just can't bring me the sensations for which I yearn. I've ... moved on.

Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies

[Opportunist]

Tonight, on "Cheaters"...

Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies

[asylumx]

Similar story here, though I won't put it as eloquently. I bought a box of Twinkies just because I hadn't had them in a while and I wanted to 'remember' what the big deal was. Got them home, had one... ya, they taste more like plastic than they do like a confectionary treat. My wife had one yesterday around lunch time, and all afternoon she was complaining about the aftertaste and if she burped it was awful for both of us. Moral of the story: I don't know if Twinkies were always this bad, or if there's a new recipe that's this bad, but this is the last time they'll be getting my money, union or no union. That is, until next time I forget what they are like....

Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies

[Anonymous Coward]

new Twinkies are the new New Coke.
fwiw, I never found old Twinkies compelling, so I'm inclined to believe that they never tasted good and people are just realizing that they ate them out of habit.

Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies

[asylumx]

I think you're right. I can't remember the last time I had a twinkie prior to this recent purchase.

Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitting

[SmallFurryCreature]

As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with. Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export. American bakery products are amongst them. And for good reason.

Twinkies are famous for being one of two things to outlast the nuclear holocaust. And you got to pity the cockroaches if that is the only food left. The maker claims their long life is a myth but I tested this by keeping them on a hot PC for over 2 years and the taste at the end had not changed. Can't say if they spoiled, just that the taste has not changed.

So what is the taste. Imagine a cake.... now imagine cake without butter. Ah, like Chiffon cake you might say... NO. In order to have a long shelf life, the hostess company does not put butter in its cakes. This might confuse those of you who think ordinary cake with butter has a long shelf life if properly wrapped but you know, Americans. They have however NOT simply made a Chiffon cake (also does not contain butter) but added something else. Don't know what but it is chemical You could lick an oil refinery and not encounter such a chemical taste. Why you might want to lick a oil refinery? Possibly because you just ate a Twinky.

The cake is truly horrible in every regard, taste (chemical), texture(dry), color(frightingly yellow pale). Inside the Twinky the ugliest caterpillar ever made a cocoon and died just as its entire body had degraded into a white mass. There are various candy interiors you better not think about to closely, this is they their queen. I think it actually serves as a coating for you taste pupils to guard you against the true horror of the cake.

So why do American love it so much?

THEY DON'T!

When I went to the US a few years ago, I went on the hunt for them because I heard so much about them and had to taste them. Most Americans I asked had no idea what I was talking about. I finally found them at Redneck central Walmart. Everything you ever heard about the USA and don't really believe is happening right now at Walmart. I now understand the compulsive need American feels to own a dozen machine guns.

To recap:

If you EVER hear about a regional delicacy that hasn't made it past its region. Take a GODDAMN HINT. Chocolate, Beer (except American), Wine, Cheese, Appels etc etc ARE NOT regional delicacies because they taste damned good and everyone loves them. Rotten fish, maggot cheese, American cheese are ONLY available in select locations because everyone will sooner declare war then import them. This includes ANYTHING from the hostess company.

They went bankrupt for a reason. Americans are fond of them because their mothers (who hated them) gave them a cake from a big box to shut them up and of such things the memories of childhood are made. But nobody in the US actually eats them. You shouldn't either, I did so you don't have to.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he was eating Twinkies
as he drove on down the highway
listening to the DJ play Merle Haggard and his band.

He didnt see the semi
as he pulled around the corner
and he died with his Ding Dong in his hand.

Oh yes he died with his Ding Dong in his hand in his hand
That creamy filling spread across the land
He didn't see the semi as he pulled around the corner and he died with his Ding Dong in his hand.

Well there was a country singer
who was eating Zingers
as he sang with a red hot country band.
Well that band was really smoking
till the singer started choking
and he died with his Ding Dong in his hand.

Oh yes he died with his Ding Dong in his hand, in his hand
that last song they sang was really grand.
Well he thought he was the mostest
till he bit that big black Hostess
and he died with his Ding Dong in his hand.

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Link. You'd be surprised what's actually available there. Song starts at 1:20 in the video.

There was never a shortage in Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should have a contract with the bakery in Canada that makes them. As they don't seem to have problems with production.

Re:There was never a shortage in Canada...

[aristotle-dude]

Maybe they should have a contract with the bakery in Canada that makes them. As they don't seem to have problems with production.

The Canadian licensee never went bankrupt so the production never ended here.

Breakfast... really?

[Kozz]

I guess I've long since ignored the polls on slashdot's front page, but I'd like to see the a poll like this.
What's your average time interval between twinkie consumption?
* 1 day
* 1 week
* 1 year
* 5 years
* 10 years
* closer to infinity

Re:Breakfast... really?

[Opportunist]

I had one. My stomach returned it with as much as an "Ey, you nuts or something? What the fuck do you think you're throwing down here?"

I think the next I'll have will be somewhere "closer to infinity".

Re:Breakfast... really?

[Anonymous Coward]

No cowboy neal option?

lets cut the BS about twinkies

[nimbius]

seriously, as i look around the office and recall from offices past, ours is a field rife with obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart disese and various other maladies caused by eating nothing but twinkies washed down with sugary soda. we can all recount a person in our office who was so fat they required special seating thanks to the nerd diet. We all know who the guy with the smell is in the office and chances are hes obese. Someone so overweight that to reach the parking lot to the door was to them a 5k to anyone else. If we we're to consider Diet and Exercise programming languages, then our laughable grasp of them would send us all scrambling to the O'Reilly store so fast youd think it was black friday.

Put down the fucking twinkies. let them go, slow down on the soda (I can attest, its hard to quit) and try meatless monday. consider the wellness program at your office this year. If you dont have one, push for it, because as long as we continue to hold this dreck upon high as some golden calf from which its ambrose we spin our code, then we can all look forward to bigger chairs higher insurance premiums and shorter lives.

and to the offices that have snack bars, please stop. I mean just stop. if you have to offer a snack as a perk, look at getting something healthier than packets of crisps and candy bars because while the HR team might not eat the junk food, the HR team takes a real lunch. nerds at their desks routinely plow through breakfast and lunch without so much as a thought and when offered, will eat anything freely given. We miss meals so you dont miss deadlines. stop poisoning us.

Re:lets cut the BS about twinkies

[Opportunist]

You ... you want to take away my snacks?

Here's my two weeks notice, the last reason to work here is gone!

Re:lets cut the BS about twinkies

[tlhIngan]

You ... you want to take away my snacks?

Here's my two weeks notice, the last reason to work here is gone!

They could offer healthier snacks - fruits and vegetables, for instance, rather than oversalted and oversugared treats.

They could offer healthier drinks as well.

Of course, the real reason they don't is that salty and sugary treats and soda are much cheaper, last forever, and everyone gets addicted to them because those treats were engineered to be liked by our lizard-brains.

Masterful marketing strategy?

[alwynschoeman]

I'm convinced that this whole hostess economic death and magical comeback was just a masterful marketing exercise with the following goals: 1) renew interest in their product which everybody was taking for granted. 2) hide the fact that they (guessing here) added nasty stuff to their ingredients to increase shelf life. Maybe 2) required an assembly line modification and they creatively found a way to use the downtime.

Re:Masterful marketing strategy?

[Opportunist]

There is absolutely nothing you can possibly do to increase the shelf life of twinkies. They are already non-perishable.

Chapter 7 versus Chapter 11

[sjbe]

I've never had a twinkie. I want to try

You really don't. They are pretty gross and really bad for you.

what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

The company didn't go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy where you keep operating and restructure the company. The company did a Chapter 7 where you liquidate the company. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy occurs when you no longer expect the company to have a reasonable expectation of remaining a going concern. When you do that you stop production because the company no longer exists and is being sold for the residual value of its assets. Someone bought the assets and started production again which is exactly what you might expect in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Re:Chapter 7 versus Chapter 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit responding to his outrage with facts. That will just make him more upset.

But ... how?

[Opportunist]

How the heck can a company that makes products where demand outstrips supply by "some margin" go bankrupt? Isn't that kinda anathema for capitalism?

Re:But ... how?

[schnell]

How the heck can a company that makes products where demand outstrips supply by "some margin" go bankrupt?

1. This is the new, post-bankruptcy company.
2. It's pretty easy, actually. Just charge less for your product than it costs you to make, market and deliver it (including your pension, healthcare and other overhead costs), and demand will actually make you go bankrupt faster. That's kinda what happened to the last company.

Re:But ... how?

[cellocgw]

It's pretty easy, actually. Just charge less for your product than it costs you to make, market and deliver it (including your pension, healthcare and other overhead costs), and demand will actually make you go bankrupt faster.

Milo Minderbinder would like a word with you concerning his prior art in this IP area.

Obviously confused

[stox]

As John Belushi showed us, the true breakfast of champions is little chocolate donuts.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/2345

Bleh.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who was in HS in the 80's know that the current form of Twinkies is disgusting. All these young people who eat them now do not know what they missed. The original Twinkie had real sugar in the filling, made it taste 1000% better than the current filling.

Companies need to get back to using real sugar not the crappy substitutes.

Grammar vs Programming

[tuppe666]

You should sue whoever "educated" you. ...
</unwanted education>

your “non-empty” markup tags are meant to come in pairs. :)

Wheaties

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all you youngsters didn't catch the allusion to the Wheaties slogan. As for posting anonymously, at this point, only my wife knows the real me. Publicly, I'm still well respected.

Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti

[Anonymous Coward]

As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with.

Baked beans are a long tradition in England, dating back to... hmmm... let's see.

The beans presently used to make baked beans are all native to North America.

Well... that doesn't bode well for your theory. Let's continue anyway.

In the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore the term baked beans refers almost exclusively to canned beans in a tomato sauce. Many people regard baked beans as an integral part of the modern full English breakfast, including beans on toast. Every day 2.3 million British people eat Heinz Baked Beans;

H.J Heinz must be a British institution with so many people enjoying their products on a daily basis. Why just look at their history!

The H. J. Heinz Company, also known as the Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is a United States food processing company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Well damn. You're looking more foolish by the minute.

The problem is that the foods from the USA that you take for granted as being UK foods actually came from the USA before you were born. You've simply never questioned the source of your own cultural traditions.

As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... because you're an idiot who doesn't know where the things he's eating came from

FTFY

And for bonus laughs, the captcha for this was "schooled"

Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti

[Anonymous Coward]

As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with. Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export. American bakery products are amongst them. And for good reason.

This is simply untrue. There are a significant number of American culinary products which are considered to be of high quality and are consumed the world over. Since you specifically mention cheese, I'll provide a counter example: Maytag blue cheese. It is an American blue cheese that is rated as comparable in quality to Stilton, Roquefort and Gorgonzola by professional cheese tasters.

Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti

[Anonymous Coward]

Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export.

We exported all our best food hundreds of years ago and you've forgot they were from the Americas. The quality of food and yes, beer, has improved greatly in the US in recent decades. The produce section in most stores has doubled, twice. The worst beer was bought by a Belgian-Brazilian company who is busy destroying every brand they ban buy, but new local breweries are created every day and brewing some wonderful beers. Walmart is a hell hole. I'm glad you got to see it, but plenty of us don't shop there.

lazy tfa author

[Anonymous Coward]

twinkies are all over the place... supermarkets, convenience stores, discount stores.. i guess they never though to check their local walmart... they're prominently displayed on an end-cap at ours.

Twinkies Schminkies

[Anonymous Coward]

You can the get store brand equivalent of Twinkies at Safeway. They're not identical, but close enough.

I Got an Image for That

[carrier lost]

Heh. Did this a couple weeks ago.

I knew it would come in handy.

Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti

[tompaulco]

Twinkies are famous for being one of two things to outlast the nuclear holocaust.

Fascinating, is this the one in Hiroshima, or the one in Nagasaki? Also, did we export enough Twinkies to Japan in 1945 to adequately test their resilience?

As someone from California...

[Anonymous Coward]

We actually had three. Two of them shuttered either before or just after the turn of the millenium, and the sole remaining one was ATTACHED TO THE HOSTESS FACTORY.

So yeah... I'm calling bullshit on your 'kept them all open' statement.

Was kinda bummed honestly since the other locations were closer to home.

Hostess Twinkies...

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss them because they make the best strawberry shortcake with the use of wripped cream. For me they are a year around thing and I miss them. They also, with strawberries, made a quick and tasty breakfast. I never over did it as far as for nutritional value. PLEASE BRING THEM BACK!