Twitter User Learns the Hard Way That Twinkies Do, In Fact, Expire
Just wait ’til you see the inside.
Getty Images/PAUL J. RICHARDS
We’ve heard before that "nothing gold can stay," but now we have the physical proof.
Earlier this month, self-proclaimed "science fan" Colin Purrington unearthed a box of Twinkies he had stashed away in 2012, shortly after Hostess Brands declared bankruptcy and subsequently closed its factories. In a spree of madness, many Hostess fans had rushed to their local grocery stores to grab what they thought would be the last of the golden snack cakes, among other Hostess favorites (for what it’s worth, the company returned in 2013).
Now, eight years later, Purrington decided to open his eight-year-old Twinkie stash and ... actually eat one. "Although I grew up thinking Twinkies would last for years, if not forever, I was wrong," he later tweeted. "The one I bit into was chewy, unsweet, and smelled like rotting ginkgo fruit. I gagged. I have nobody to blame but myself—the box clearly warned, 'Best Used by Nov 26th' (2012)."
In a Twitter thread, Purrington continued to describe the Twinkies, writing that the cream filling in one had constricted and turned brown. Another was "hosting an organism of some sort." And a third had, inexplicably, shriveled into a mummified brown mess.
The upside? According to NPR, two West Virginia University scientists were intrigued by the Twitter thread and obtained the Twinkies to study their fungi, even using a bone marrow tool to break through the mummified one. So far, they’ve grown one strain of mold from a discolored Twinkie. However, the mummified Twinkie has yet to grow anything.
In the same article, the scientists said they will continue to study the snack cakes to try to cultivate some sort of organism. As for Purrington? He did the same thing with Ho Hos, if you can believe it. And, for the record, he’s stated that Ho Hos from 2012 are "really bad, too."
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