a "ho-ho" 'ho no mo'

i'm truly bummed. i don't think i will ever be able to eat another "ho-ho" again.

when i was young ~ and heck, even when i was in the early years of my teaching ~ i felt that either a hostess ho-ho or a chocolate hostess cupcake was a necessity when brown-bagging it. and i mean a necessity. buying these sweets with my own money was proof of my adult-hood. forget about buying alcohol when i turned 21 ~ "heck yeah, i can buy a box of ho-ho's whenever i want...does life get any better than this?"

eventually i expanded my dietary horizon to include little debbie products, specifically the swiss cake rolls (ho-ho wannabes) and fudge brownies. yummy. i mean, really. yummy. or so i thought...

a few days ago, i read this article in newsweek: "decoding the 39 ingredients in a twinkie".

egads. gross. barf.

i've been ruined.

now, first of all i must state that i never liked twinkies. no chocolate in a twinkie = no interest from me. but now i know that the industrial strength chemicals in a twinkie are also in my beloved ho-ho's.

i.e. ho-ho's aren't even real food. they're a manufactured pseudo-confection that contains ingredients that are used as weed killers, postage stamp glue, and disinfectants. oh no.

so now, when i go to the store, and the hostess items beckon me, i have no problem dissing them.

i read another article which stated that if you are craving something sweet, make it at home, from scratch. it may not be entirely healthy...but it will be healthier than the preservative-infested goo that is on the shelves at the market. makes sense. i guess.

hmmm...

i have a bag of chocolate chips in my cupboard that are just dying to be mixed with ingredients such as flour and sugar and eggs and vanilla...who needs that sodium stearoyl lactylate anyways?