find out that Twinkies have a shelf life of 45 days. The article says that Twinkies “in fact, contain real food." And goes on further to proclaim: “They are truly baked.” All 500 million produced each year.
The urban myth is that Twinkies could survive a nuclear war. I remember this at the time. This was perpetuated when a science teacher in Maine supposedly kept a Twinkie on top of his chalkboard in the 1970s - and kept it there for 30 years. I guess he must have opened it after that - the teacher claimed it appeared fresh and edible.
That’s the story in the news summaries sorts of stories. Now onto some of the actual facts of the story:
The teacher was Roger Bennatti, a chemistry teacher at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Maine. He started the experiment in 1976. It stayed in his classroom for 28 years until he retired in 2004. When he retired he passed it on to Libby Rosemeier the Dean of Students and a former student in the class where the experiment began.
The Twinkie is still with us in 2026. It turned 50 years old in January. It has not decomposed, but it has turned hard, sort of like stale bread or an over-size crouton. I think it resembles a giant Italian biscotti. The experiment originator has looked at it a lot longer than I have and he calls it a Twinkie mummy.
While the article says that it did not remain “palatable” there’s no indication that the world’s oldest known Twinkie has been the subject of any formal laboratory analysis or when the taste-testing occurred to designate its quality.
It doesn’t seem to have made it to the Guinness World Records. Twinkies aren’t a normal record subject - the official records have to be verified and generally relate to human or cultural activities and feats. For example, on the oldest food topic, Guinness says there is a restaurant in Madrid that has been serving roast suckling pig for nearly 300 years. And what about the tombs in Egypt where 3,000-year-old honey as found and was “fully edible.”
Twinkies turns out to be quite the ‘term’ for things racist, sexual, and so on. Here’s the one joke that is OK, and perfect for today’s post.
“If there was a great joke about Twinkies, it would never get old.”
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