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Ode to Twinkies

By Staff | Nov 19, 2010

To the editor;

The food police have just been smacked on the side of the head with its own anti high fructose corn syrup billy club. Dr. Mark Haub, associate professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, is making national headlines with his so-called Twinkie Diet.

Specifically, Haub lost 27 pounds in two months by eating only Twinkies, candy bars, sugared soda and other junk.

Although Haub said his results are getting serious media coverage because they may prove it’s not what you eat, but how many calories you eat that matters in weight loss.

Haub also confirmed that losing weight reaps health benefits because his bad cholesterol, or LDL, went down 20 percent and his good cholesterol, or HDL, went up 20 percent.

He even dropped the level of blood fats in his body, called triglycerides, by 39 percent.

Haub said he put the weight loss project together for his class to disprove the food police myths that refined grains and corn sugars are the cause of obesity.

Haub’s Twinkie Diet limited his daily calorie intake to less than 1,800 calories and included a multi-vitamin, protein shake and a handful of vegetables.

Tongue-in-cheek aside, Haub knows the Twinkie Diet isn’t nutritious, but that wasn’t his point.

He also said he wasn’t paid by Hostess or any other food company to do this project, nor did he get grant money – he was simply trying to prove that if we want to lose weight, we’re better off paying attention to the calories on our food labels than scouring the fine print for HFCS or words like “refined grains” or “processed.”

We’re a nation of fat people and pointing the fingers at HFCS, corn farmers or farm subsidies isn’t going to bring us a trim waistline.

If what we take out of our diets isn’t as important as how much we put in our mouths, how about a second helping of common sense?

That and a walk around the block would do us all a world of good.

Laurie Johns

Iowa Farm Bureau

Laurie Johns is public relations manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau.