Twinkies Facts

They were invented in 1932 by James Alexander Dewar. The first Twinkie held banana cream, though banana rationing during World War II forced the switch to vanilla cream, now the official Twinkie flavor.

A Junk Food Diet Works

Junk food is commonly associated with a coffee break and this junk food diet works. Nutritionist Mark Haub went on a junk food diet to determine if he could eat almost nothing but junk food and still lose weight. His theory was that weight loss is primarily tied to calorie intake, rather than what type of food you eat. He stuck to an 1,800 calorie per day diet of mostly Twinkies, Donuts, Doritos, Oreos, and sugary cereals. He also drank a protein shake and took a multivitamin.

During the two months of his diet, his body mass index dropped from 28.8 to 24.9 and he lost 27 pounds, dropping from 201 pounds to 174 pounds.

In addition to his weight loss, bad cholesterol levels dropped 20% over his normal healthy diet and his good cholesterol levels increased by 20%. He even dropped 39% on his bad fat levels, including triglycerides. This does debunk a number of other "fad" diet claims and proves it is volume that counts when trying to lose weight.

Five Fun Food Facts

Several states used to require margarine to be dyed pink to appease the dairy lobby and keep butter sales strong.

The Quaker Oats guy's name is Larry.

Twinkies originally had banana-flavored filling. Hostess switched to vanilla after bananas were rationed during World War II.

Oklahoma’s official state vegetable is the watermelon.

The eight juices in V8 are tomato, spinach, celery, carrot, beet, lettuce, watercress and parsley.

Fatty Foods and Emotions

A new study published in the August issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation tells why people tend to turn to fatty foods in order to boost their emotional state and reduce feelings of sadness.

Researchers say fatty foods, like chocolate, fries, etc., create a biological change in your body to reduce feelings of sadness.

They recruited 12 healthy and non-obese participants who were shown images of people with sad expressions while listening to one minute clips of sad classical music selections, while hooked up to fMRI scans to monitor brain activity. The participants were also hooked up to a feeding tube, with half fed the fatty acid found in Twinkies, and the other half fed a saline liquid.

During the test, participants were asked at four different times to rate their levels of hunger, fullness and mood. The results showed those who received the saline were twice as sad than the fatty acid group, but there was no difference in hunger of fullness.

The fMRI scans also confirmed the findings that participants who received the fatty acid solution showed dampened activity in the areas of the brain that are connected to emotions and feelings of sadness. I like this kind of study, eat fat, be happy! Maybe that is why bacon lovers are happier.