The Hostess With The Leastest

I dunno how it is where you shop but in the market where I go, all the food seems to be migrating into 100 calorie packs. I fully expect to go in there next time and see a box containing 100 calorie packets of Peanut M&M's. Each packet would contain about half a Peanut M.

This afternoon, I spotted 100 calories packs of Hostess Cupcakes. Hostess Cupcakes! I thought it was a joke but there they were in a big display at the end of an aisle, available in three varieties — chocolate cake, golden cake and carrot cake. They look like traditional Hostess Cupcakes but they're smaller and the company, obviously trying to keep the calories down, omits the famous squiggle. I always knew that the squiggle was where all the calories were.

Yes, of course, I bought a box…of the chocolate kind. Each box contains six packets and each packet contains three small cakes that collectively will put a mere hundred calories into your system. How were they? They were Hostess Cupcakes. How good or bad is that? The bakers (I'm using that noun loosely) apparently reconfigured the recipe a bit to lessen the unhealthy content — and of course, they got rid of the fattening squiggle. And then they made the cupcakes smaller. Each is about two bites. I think the question becomes whether the six bites you get in one of these packages would satisfy your craving for something sugary or if it would just make you hornier for a real Hostess Cupcake…or something better.

I'm in the former camp. Since my Gastric Bypass Surgery, I have much less of a sweet tooth. My sugar consumption is way, way down. In fact, I'll tell you a story about that, about how my intake of sugar actually plunged well before the surgery. I used to be one of those people who downed 3-6 cans of non-diet carbonated something per day — usually Pepsi during daylight hours and something non-caffeinated, like 7-Up or Canada Dry Ginger Ale, after dark.

February of 2006, as you may recall, I was briefly hospitalized. This had nothing to do with the Gastric Bypass I would have a few months later but at the time, I was on the waitlist and studying up on my impending stomach surgery…and one thing I'd learned was that after the procedure, I would need to eliminate all carbonated beverages and to lower my sugar intake. A nutritionist I'd met with emphasized that to me and said, "Do you think you can give up sodas?" And I replied, at least half-seriously, "If I could give up sodas, I wouldn't need the Gastric Bypass."

It turned out I could give them up. While I was in Cedars-Sinai for those four days, I had no Pepsi or anything of the sort, nor did I miss it. I'm not sure if it was because I was just lying there the whole time, not exerting myself and therefore not needing any energy boost. Or it may have been because nurses kept taking my blood sugar and bringing me either snacks or insulin depending on whether it was too low or too high. In any case, I had no soft drinks and when I got out, I decided to see how long I could refrain. It turned out that breaking that addiction was much easier than I'd imagined. CO2 bubbles have not crossed my lips since, nor have I missed them. It also turned out that I still needed the Gastric Bypass, which I had three months later. Lowering my sugar intake (or at least, the levels of High Fructose Corn Syrup) caused me to lose some weight but not enough.

I can still eat sugar but I consume and want a lot less of it. Cakes and candy just don't taste as wonderful as they once did and that's not a bad thing. In a way, the joy of them now is that the taste reminds me of earlier, better experiences. So the six bites of Hostess 100 Calorie Cupcakes are just fine, insofar as I'm concerned. They may work the same way for you.