This Is the Single Least Healthy Hostess Snack

The problem with healthy snacks is that you’re aware that they’re healthy. It’s a base misunderstanding of the pleasure and purpose of a “snack.” This isn’t simply a game of calories and sugar content, but a complex psychological salve that requires misbehavior to fully achieve. 

A truly satisfying snack is, by definition, a bit of a fuck you to the idea that it’s serving any nutritional value at all. The amount of dietary fiber is irrelevant, because being “filling” isn’t the purpose here. The purpose is a few blissful seconds where I’m trying to spackle over the void of being with a thick paste of nougat and caramel. On this count, no one makes a momentary ennui-buster like Hostess.

Not all Hostess snacks are created equal, though. They’re all, of course, physically bad for you, but one must be the absolute worst, right? Which also means, given the logic above, that they’re simultaneously the absolute best, too.

To get to the worst/best you need to immediately dismiss anything that hasn’t been glazed, iced or filled. After all, running a treat under an endless curtain of molten sugar is always going to send the calorie count skyrocketing. That quickly brings you to a murderers’ row of packaged sweets: Ho Hos, Giant Honey Buns and the classic Hostess Cupcake. 

Ho-Hos and Hostess Cupcakes do their damage with the sheer variety of sugar variations included in a single item, but it turns out the Giant Honey Bun sends both packing. It’s impressive, really, because it needs no fancy rolling or stuffing techniques to hit 560 calories per bun. It’s basically a microwaveable meteorite from the Diabetes Galaxy, one that provides over half of your recommended sugar for the day and 80 percent of your recommended saturated fat in a single, wet, glorious spiral.

Yet, there’s a dark horse in this race, and it’s an item you might not suspect. In fact, if you weigh sugar higher than fats, it does indeed dethrone the Giant Honey Bun. 

Its calorie count is 520, and don’t worry, it still possesses enough saturated fat to protrude a doctor’s forehead vein, at 50 percent of your daily recommended value. But it’s the aforementioned amount of sugar that’s truly gobsmacking — a stunning 74 percent of your daily value in a handful of bites. A single one of these things would have a hummingbird set for life. 

What is this undercover artery-blocker, you ask? The humble berry-and-cream-cheese Danish. 

Hey, at least you’re getting some fruit in there.