Phosphorus? Phosphoryou, Twinkie!

The magic of an American guilty pleasure exposed....

"Twinkies are as amazingly good as they are disgusting. But do you know why? We've picked a few facts from Twinkie, Deconstructed (Hudson Street Press, $24), by Steven Ettlinger.

Phosphorus, part of a key Twinkie ingredient, was discovered in 1669 by German alchemist Hennig Brand when he boiled down the urine he collected from local nuns.
Other Twinkie ingredients include the rocks trona and limestone.
Twinkies made per year: 500,000,000.
Twinkie cream gets its slippery sheen from cotton cellulose, which serves the same purpose in rocket fuel.
Despite popular lore, Twinkies will not survive a nuclear war any better than you will--their average shelf life is 25 days.
President Clinton put a Twinkie in a time capsule."

from Esquire magazine, April 2007