# When will the last of the Twinkies expire? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 16, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188 "2012-11-16T14:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/21 "2012-11-17T08:41:56Z")
On a serious note, they start getting stale after about a month or two, a surprisingly short period of time. I haven’t bought any for about a year or so. I used to get the banana-cream flavored ones, but they stopped making them and switched to making the horrendous chocolate-cream ones. I got lucky (or so I thought) and found a single box of banana-creams way in back. I neglected to check the date, and bought it, only to find out they were stale. They got somewhat harder, drier, and much less appealing. Enjoy what you can get now. I just hope someone else steps in and makes an equivalent in banana-cream flavor. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/22 "2012-11-18T01:53:21Z")
[QUOTE=Jeff Lichtman] If another company buys the Twinkie name, I’m sure a lot of people will insist they don’t taste the same even if they’re made in the same factories by the same workers using the same recipes. [/QUOTE] They already don’t taste the same. Not knowing anything of Hostess’ labor problems, I bought a box of Twinkies, and they just seemed oily and not anywhere near as good as I remembered. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/23 "2012-11-18T03:34:09Z")
After a suitable absence, they will re-appear on the market, with a new taste, to be called “New Twinkies”. A massive backlash of old-school twinkists will arise, clamoring for the old flavor. The new company will re-introduce the original formula, under the brand name “Twinkies Classic”, at twice the price. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/24 "2012-11-18T05:06:16Z")
Jane & Michael Stern, the [Roadfood](http://roadfood.com/) people, reverse-engineered their own Twinkie-like snack cake recipe in 1989. They called them [Stinkies](http://www.roadfood.com/Digest/779/stinkies/). ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/25 "2012-11-18T05:21:38Z")
And of course, Twinkies are made [more or less exactly the same] under license in other countries. Importantly for Americans, they are made in Canada and won’t be disappearing with the cessation of the U.S.-based production lines. Now I’m envisioning Twinkie-legging, a la Prohibition-era Canadian entrepreneurs… ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/26 "2012-11-18T05:59:46Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > The package I bought today says Best by December 12, 703135 19:36, an oddly specific expiration date. So I guess 701,000 years give or take a century. That kind of agrees with the last package I read. It said **You should live so long.** ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/27 "2012-11-18T15:59:51Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > The package I bought today says Best by December 12, 703135 19:36, an oddly specific expiration date. And when the clock strikes 19:37 We are all doomed! ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/28 "2012-11-18T16:05:14Z")
They ought to put some Twinkys in “time capsules” I don’t think they could decay-they are loaded with chemicals. When you opened a pack, you got a blast of chemical smelling gas-enough to scare me. I do hope that “ring dings” will still be produced -they are awesome! ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/29 "2012-11-18T20:35:32Z")
It’s an urban myth that Twinkies have some extraordinary shelf life. They last relatively long for a delicate baked/filled cake - most bakeries toss such things at the end of each day, as they are inedibly hard or gooey by the next day - but if you look the expiry date on a package, it’s only about ten days out. Poundstone covered this in _Big Secrets_. ---
**Author:** ![Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Nunzio\_Tavulari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunzio_Tavulari)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/30 "2012-11-18T20:50:34Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#): > > And of course, Twinkies are made [more or less exactly the same] under license in other countries. Importantly for Americans, they are made in Canada and won’t be disappearing with the cessation of the U.S.-based production lines. > > Now I’m envisioning Twinkie-legging, a la Prohibition-era Canadian entrepreneurs… If they haven’t done this with the far superior Chocodiles, they won’t do it for Twinkies. ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/31 "2012-11-18T21:21:44Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > They ought to put some Twinkys in “time capsules” I don’t think they could decay-they are loaded with chemicals. When you opened a pack, you got a blast of chemical smelling gas-enough to scare me. > I do hope that “ring dings” will still be produced -they are awesome! Of course they are loaded with chemicals; [even water is a chemical](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water). [Here](http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38872091/ns/today-food/t/ingredients-twinkie-eaters-ingest/#.UKlOpWdT9kh) is an article that includes pictures of most of the ingredients used; some have chemical names and are inorganic but are ingredients found in many other foods (like iron, or calcium sulfate aka gypsum); the only truly artificial chemicals are the colors (they may also use partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in place of animal fat as shown, more likely than not, since it is probably cheaper). Myself, I haven’t eaten a Twinkie in like 10 years, but not necessarily because of any particular ingredient they contain; they are junk food. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/32 "2012-11-19T17:47:06Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > If another company buys the Twinkie name, I’m sure a lot of people will insist they don’t taste the same even if they’re made in the same factories by the same workers using the same recipes. Probably not the same factories, or the same workers. And that might be a good thing. Hostess says that they’ve tried to find someone to buy them out, but nobody was interested because Hostess’ bakeries are all old and crappy. What’ll probably happen is, some other company will buy the rights to the _name_ Twinkies, and make then at their own bakeries. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/33 "2012-11-19T23:13:44Z")
Heard on the radio today that the bankruptcy judge is forcing Labor and Management into arbitration, and that there is indeed another company that wants to buy not just the name, but the actual business. They feel that they can get a deal on the purchase, invest in the infrastructure and turn it into a profit making enterprise again. I assume firing the bigwigs that keep giving themselves multimillion dollar raises while asking the plebs actual working on the factory lines to take cuts is the first step in their business plan. So don’t despair…the Twinkie will rise again! ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2012, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188/34 "2012-11-21T05:53:14Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > So don’t despair…the Twinkie will rise again! Are they leavened with yeast? Are they kosher for Passover? In other news… I saw today (11/20/2012) that the arbitration that the judge ordered fell through, and with that, it’s all over. (Don’t have a cite handy, but I trust that by the time you read this post, it will be all over the news sites.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-last-of-the-twinkies-expire/641188.md?page=1)