Twinkie, Deconstructed Read Online Free PDF Page B

is made by releasing it from salt in an electrochemical reaction called electrolysis, the one first envisioned by the English chemist Michael Faraday in his early experiments with electricity in the mid-1800s and often studied or demonstrated in chemistry classrooms. The modern, current form of electrolysis—which coincidently makes sodium hydroxide—became the norm for chlorine production only when electricity became available to industry. The first plant to use it, in 1893, was in Rumford, Maine.
    At a typical plant—and, for homeland security reasons, I have been asked to not specifically identify one—the brine (concentrated salt water) is pumped into fiberglass and/or titanium electrochemical cells in a room the size of a typical high school gymnasium. Each cell, and there may be up to a hundred in a room, appears to be about the size of a couple of good-size deep freezers, about eight feet long by four feet wide and high. The room holds a daunting maze of hundreds of brine pipes and electrical conduits laid out flat, in a kind of rectangular city. Two thick copper bars carry massive amounts of current to electrodes in each cell’s side, and various pipes and tubes channel a continuous supply of salt water. The cells seem happy enough with their plight: they hum as they work.
    It may be simple chemistry, but it’s still a little dangerous. It starts with a tank of salt water and a strong electrical current, which causes the chlorine to separate from the sodium in the salt and gather at one side, while the hydrogen separates from the oxygen in the water and scurries to the other side, a bit like two boxers after the bell rings. What’s left behind is sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda, which plays an important role in making at least seven Twinkie ingredients common among all processed foods, including sodium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, artificial colors, corn flour, soybean oil, vegetable shortening, and soy protein isolate. Whether or not you can pronounce ’em, it’s all in the family.
    The two gases, chlorine and hydrogen, 2 are carefully kept apart for good reason. If they were to be exposed to sunlight together in just the right conditions, they could explode.
    P IPES AND C AKE
    The elemental chlorine, Cl 2 , is piped out as a greenish yellow gas, which is further purified, compressed, and liquefied at extreme subzero temperatures. Most plants use the bulk of it right there to make other things, like vinyl siding or plastic pipe, aka PVC (polyvinylchloride), a far cry from bread and cake, or so you thought. The rest is often just piped directly into pressurized, extra-secure train cars or neighboring chemical plants. Astonishingly important, chlorine is essential to about half of all chemicals made by the chemical industry, and about 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals. It is used to purify about 98 percent of our drinking water, too (and to keep our swimming pools clean). On top of all this, chlorine plays a common, useful, and helpful role in our daily diet.
    When it comes to flour, fresher is not better. In fact, for centuries, freshly milled flour was stored for a few months in order to allow for natural oxidation before it was sold. Oxidation whitened the flour, which starts out a creamy yellow thanks to the natural yellow-orange carotenoid pigments found in wheat—the source of the image “amber waves of grain.” By the late 1800s, consumers had started paying higher prices for whiter flour. Manufacturers responded, naturally, by looking for more efficient, less costly ways to meet that demand (time is money).
    In 1879, two important developments occurred to bring us closer to the perfection of cake flour and the birth of Twinkies. The UK Patent Office (one of the oldest in the world) granted a patent for using chlorine as a bleaching agent, and modern roller mills were introduced. Soon after, in the early 1900s, when chlorine gas first became widely available in the United States,