We have already seen how the flour is created from the grains, but now we need to prematurely age the flour to whiten and oxidize it. Back in the "good old days" after flour was made it was left to sit for several months before use. This settling whitened the flour by letting the natural pigments break down and let the protein in the grain also break down to make a lighter, fluffier flour for use in cakes.Frankly, in our modern society of instant gratification, we can't wait that long. Instead of letting the process happen naturally, we help it along, also without the bleaching process, adding the same amount of sugar to the flour would make it the consistency more like a pound cake In order to get nice, white, light flour, we need bleach.
Yes, that's right. Chlorine, the same chlorine used to keep our pools clean and our whites bright is what they use. It might sound scary, but chlorine is the tenth most common chemical made in the United States, it is used in 85% of all our pharmaceuticals, purifies 90% of our drinking water, and is used in about half of all chemicals made in the United States. Granted, due to security reasons the locations of such plants are not easy to discover and no one is allowed to just walk in and visit casually. That's because chlorine is highly toxic and potentially explosive and would make a terrorist piddle himself with glee to think he could damage one of these plants.
Chlorine is found in many places naturally, but always mixed with another substance, such as NaCl, or salt. This is what they use to make the chlorine gas used for our Twinkies. A large tub of salt water is given a huge jolt of electricity and the particles separate, just as it was first envisioned by Michael Faraday (English chemist in case you were wondering) in the 1800's. The electricity hits the water and the chlorine separates from the sodium while the hydrogen separates from the oxygen and luckily each of these elements go to different sides of the enclosure because if the chlorine and hydrogen get together they will explode. The left behind sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda, will be used in a bunch of other food products like sodium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, artificial coloring, corn flour, soybean oil, vegetable shortening, and soy protein isolate.
For safety's sake, chlorine is usually shipped in large pressurized tanks that are bullet proof. They also like to say accident proof, but ask Graniteville, S.C. about that. Once these tanks arrive at the flour mill they are hooked up in an airtight, high-security, hazardous materials bungalow and allowed to trickle the chlorine into an agitator in the mill while the flour passes through, pushed along by 5 in. long maple paddles. The reaction occurs instantly, and our Twinkies flour passes out of the agitator in just seconds.
Now we have the white oxidized flour we needed, but due to legislation we have to enrich it. Enrichment is adding back in to foods nutrients which were destroyed during the processing. This is completely different from fortification in which they add nutrients to foods that never had nutrients to begin with. Odd to think with Twinkies that we are using the process of enrichment. Regardless, the enrichment blend includes ferrous sulfate and B vitamins, niacin, thiamine, mononitrate (B1), riboflavin (B2), and folic acid. Each of these were chosen in the enrichment blend to aid in fending off certain diseases like pellagra and beriberi- I don't know anyone who's had one of these diseases, so they must be doing a good job. Most of these vitamins are created rather than taken from fresh fruits and vegetables because it is more cost effective, easier to regulate the strength of the vitamin, and to regulate the quality. Unfortunately it is very hard to manufacture these chemicals without a lot of pollution, so we often have the enrichment blends created in places like India or China- looks like lead may be in there too! I'll come back to the particulars of the blend- much sooner than I got back to the bleaching process at a later date.
Yes, that's right. Chlorine, the same chlorine used to keep our pools clean and our whites bright is what they use. It might sound scary, but chlorine is the tenth most common chemical made in the United States, it is used in 85% of all our pharmaceuticals, purifies 90% of our drinking water, and is used in about half of all chemicals made in the United States. Granted, due to security reasons the locations of such plants are not easy to discover and no one is allowed to just walk in and visit casually. That's because chlorine is highly toxic and potentially explosive and would make a terrorist piddle himself with glee to think he could damage one of these plants.
Chlorine is found in many places naturally, but always mixed with another substance, such as NaCl, or salt. This is what they use to make the chlorine gas used for our Twinkies. A large tub of salt water is given a huge jolt of electricity and the particles separate, just as it was first envisioned by Michael Faraday (English chemist in case you were wondering) in the 1800's. The electricity hits the water and the chlorine separates from the sodium while the hydrogen separates from the oxygen and luckily each of these elements go to different sides of the enclosure because if the chlorine and hydrogen get together they will explode. The left behind sodium hydroxide, or caustic soda, will be used in a bunch of other food products like sodium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, artificial coloring, corn flour, soybean oil, vegetable shortening, and soy protein isolate.
For safety's sake, chlorine is usually shipped in large pressurized tanks that are bullet proof. They also like to say accident proof, but ask Graniteville, S.C. about that. Once these tanks arrive at the flour mill they are hooked up in an airtight, high-security, hazardous materials bungalow and allowed to trickle the chlorine into an agitator in the mill while the flour passes through, pushed along by 5 in. long maple paddles. The reaction occurs instantly, and our Twinkies flour passes out of the agitator in just seconds.
Now we have the white oxidized flour we needed, but due to legislation we have to enrich it. Enrichment is adding back in to foods nutrients which were destroyed during the processing. This is completely different from fortification in which they add nutrients to foods that never had nutrients to begin with. Odd to think with Twinkies that we are using the process of enrichment. Regardless, the enrichment blend includes ferrous sulfate and B vitamins, niacin, thiamine, mononitrate (B1), riboflavin (B2), and folic acid. Each of these were chosen in the enrichment blend to aid in fending off certain diseases like pellagra and beriberi- I don't know anyone who's had one of these diseases, so they must be doing a good job. Most of these vitamins are created rather than taken from fresh fruits and vegetables because it is more cost effective, easier to regulate the strength of the vitamin, and to regulate the quality. Unfortunately it is very hard to manufacture these chemicals without a lot of pollution, so we often have the enrichment blends created in places like India or China- looks like lead may be in there too! I'll come back to the particulars of the blend- much sooner than I got back to the bleaching process at a later date.
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