A Parable of Twinkies
Land of Plenty
Once upon a time, there was a country of great prosperity and wealth. All through the land, people enjoyed a wide variety of cuisine — rich foods from the best culinary traditions. These foods were widely available to those who wanted them.
Some consumed them to excess, and others opted to partake of food that was of lower quality for the sake of greater convenience.
Still, these things did not largely preclude the flourishing of robust, diverse, and satisfying diets among the land’s denizens. They took great joy and pride in the artistry of preparing their food and in sharing it with one another.
The Crash
But one day, there came an alarming report that a new type of hypoglycemia — known to some as low blood sugar — was becoming widespread in the population.
Among those afflicted by this ailment, a small number went into comas or even died. It was not clear how common it was that this new condition became fatal. Some said the worst of it was confined only to a select few who were already prone to hypoglycemic episodes, while others insisted severe impacts frequently occurred in almost anyone.
With limited, confusing, and sometimes conflicting information available, a bold plan was hatched by the ruling High Council on behalf of those they represented. Until such time as better preventions could be discovered, word spread to the towns that all inhabitants of the land should abandon their usual diets, and eat only Twinkies and drink only Mountain Dew.
By consuming only substances known to drastically increase blood sugar levels, it was thought that there would be no way for the severe lows to occur. If the people would do this for a mere fortnight, enough time could be bought for the towns’ physicians to be better equipped to treat this ailment.
But it must be for everyone to eat this New Diet, the town criers announced, because eating and drinking is a profoundly social activity, and if even a few retained their usual dietary habits, this behavior would spread and be the ruin of all.
Objections Overruled
Most of the citizens of the land reasoned that a temporary situation such as this could be tolerated. Knowing that many of their ancestors had often been faced with starvation before the present time of plenty, it seemed a small sacrifice to make. It was only for a fortnight after all. Moreover, the sense of solidarity in the face of this new crisis was strong within the community
And so, the people began to eat Twinkies and drink Mountain Dew.
But after a fortnight had come and gone, the Council had instead extended the duration of the New Diet amid frequent reports of more and more new cases of severely low blood sugar in their towns. There arose in parallel growing concerns about the health effects of subsisting on such limited nutrition, even on a temporary basis.
“This may come have ill effects we cannot foresee,” said a few from isolated villages on the outskirts of larger towns. “And we cannot help but see that the Council has not kept its word as to the time that we were to resume our customary diets.”
“This new ailment is serious!” was the resounding reply. “The people’s very lives are at stake!”
It was a strong tonic, this line of thought. No one in this agreeable, community-minded country wanted to be seen as dismissive of the lives of his neighbors. And thus, though a few dissenters persisted, most of the serious opposition was drowned out by the impassioned town criers and their audience.
The people, even those with no signs or symptoms of low blood sugar, continued to eat Twinkies and drink Mountain Dew.
Who Could’ve Anticipated?
It was many more fortnights before most of the districts governed by the High Council began tentatively allowing a diverse array of food and drink to once again be sold. In the interim of over a year, there were reports of increased incidence of worsening metabolic health and severe weight gain, in some cases resulting in diabetes or heart disease.
Worse, while some districts had seemingly prevented the most severe cases of hypoglycemia with this steady diet of sugars, starches, oils, and syrups, most had still been plagued by it.
There were at this time whispers of those who had begun to sneak meals of steak, broccoli, rice, potatoes, and other more traditional foods — out of public view and among their close friends and family (and encouraging others to do the same). The rulers of a few of the districts had elected not to enforce the New Diet among their people, forsaking the Council’s instruction.
Still, most maintained the appearance of eating Twinkies and drinking Mountain Dew.
However, the solidarity and self-sacrifice that had characterized the community in those early weeks was nowhere to be found. Sharp dissent and division had plagued the once unified society, both on the street and in the chambers of the High Council. Perhaps this was the worst curse of all to befall the country during this time.
The declining health of the people and the increasing ill will became impossible to ignore. The popular wisdom in the cities and towns was that this new hypoglycemia was somehow the cause of these problems too, that it must have had even more profound impacts than anyone first expected.
Pontificating and blame-seeking ensued. The townsfolk and even some members of the Council lamented that, if only those rebels had been content to eat Twinkies and drink Mountain Dew, the crisis could have ended sooner.
Even so, the tide of hypoglycemic cases eventually fell. Gradually, a greater variety of food eventually began to be seen in local markets and a sense of reprieve was gained. Many, fatigued by the ordeal, had no taste left for finding fault or assigning blame.
Salvation at Last
But, for many of the more idealistic, ambitious members of the Council, the crisis had only fueled the flames of their long-held beliefs that it was high time they guide the country with an even firmer hand than ever before.
“It is fortunate that this crisis arose when it did,” they opined, “for now the greatest failings of our society have been laid bare. We must never return to our former barbaric ways of licentious, gluttonous behavior.”
The problem, they said, was not with what the people had been made to eat. The problem was that the people had not been supplied with regular doses of insulin to treat the rising blood glucose and counteract the worst of the impacts on the body.
It was proposed that any view of food beyond its utility as simple fuel for the body was leading to great waste and inequity among the people. If authority might simply be given to the Council to correct the first oversights, an improved, New Diet could be reintroduced to ensure no loose ends.
The people would eat Twinkies and drink Mountain Dew, and inject insulin, and they would be happy.
The End of the Tale?
The story remains incomplete to this day, the next pages lost to time. Scattered writings surface occasionally, recording the words of those villagers from outside the walls, those who first questioned the wisdom of the New Diet.
They became infamous in those days for their disagreements with the trusted voices on the Council. Some were committed to asylums for their endangerment of the rebuilt, but fragile, solidarity among the rest of the people. Others were threatened or bribed into silence.
Today we retain record of their fringe, but haunting claims: that perhaps the New Diet was never needed at all, and that the way to solve the worsening health of the people was not to implement, with an even heavier hand, the system which had created an even greater problem — but simply to allow the people to stop eating Twinkies and drinking Mountain Dew.