40-year-old Twinkie still going strong

BLUE HILL, Maine – In a glass box in a private school in Maine sits a 40-year-old chemistry experiment still going strong: A decades-old Twinkie.

ABC News reports the experiment started in 1976 when Roger Bennatti was teaching a lesson to his high school chemistry class on food additives and shelf life.

After a student wondered about the shelf life of the snack, Bennatti sent the students to the store with some money. When they returned with the treat, Bennatti ate one and placed the still-surviving Twinkie on the blackboard.

Bennatti has since retired, but the snack now resides in the office of George Stevens Academy’s Dean of Students Libby Rosemeier.

Rosemeier told ABC News she isn’t sure who will inherit the Twinkie when she retires, but joked that the Smithsonian hasn’t called yet.

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