I was always more of a Little Debbie fan. Star crunches were my absolute favorite. I still sometimes gaze longingly at them at the grocery store. I wonder how they're doing, since reports on their main competition, Interstate Bakeries Corporation, are not looking too good.

The maker of Hostess Cakes, Twinkies, and Wonder Bread has been losing sales for the last quarter at least. And in January alone the company lost $18.9 million. That's the biggest drop since Interstate Bakeries went into bankruptcy in late 2004.

I feel bad for the workers who actually make the products. They'll be the first to get hit. By the same token, I do not feel bad about what the drop in sales could mean. Hopefully people are starting to eat more wholesome and fewer processed foods. This may be a sign that consumers are moving away from foods that can last forever.

A while ago I bought a few cookbooks by Graham Kerr at a junk shop. Those of you out there of a certain age will remember him as TV's Galloping Gourmet. I have yet to cook any of the recipes in any of them. I'd had all but forgotten about them until the other day when I picked up the Volume 5 Television Cookbook and a decades-old page from a women's magazine containing the ad seen here fell out.

It's got a Peter Max-inspired graphic and copy that extols the nutritional benefits of "Delicious Wonder Bread!" I was pretty certain that this ad was circa 1970. Thanks to the, er, wonders of eBay and other auction sites I was able to confirm this. Seems that around that time Continental Baking had a print campaign involving pictures of boys and girls saying how big they wanted to be. My favorite ad has a picture of a kid with a black eye and bears the headline, "Bigger than Kevin."

Perhaps when I great around to cooking some of Kerr's recipes I'll try the recipe for John Wayne's Cheese Casserole that appeared on the same page. With all its green chiles, eggs, cheese and tomatoes its sounds like some sort of manly 1970s quiche.

I hate it when I lose any kind of food products, whether they are forgotten in the back of the fridge, hidden beneath a couple new rolls of parchment paper in the bread drawer or pushed to the back of the cabinet behind several boxes of cereal. In the best-case scenario, they are old and stale when I find them and, in the worst, they are truly "icky." Alanna, from A Veggie Venture experienced neither situation when she came upon a 10-month old loaf of Wonder Bread that had been long since lost in the depths of her bread drawer. It didn't have a speck of mold on it and smelled fine, with no indication that it might be past its prime. Based on this unintentional experiment, Alanna concluded that Wonder Bread "is truly-truly dead and lifeless cardboard."

I wasn't buying Wonder Bread before and I doubt I'll be changing my shopping habits any time soon. Unless, of course, I'm shopping to replenish my emergency disaster kit and want foods with a really long shelf lift.

Of course we all know that whole grains breads are better for us, but in our heart of hearts, soft, sweet plain white bread tastes soooo much better. We may not ever admit that in this health-conscious world, but kids sure will.

The king of all white breads, Wonder Bread, has come up with a whole grain alternative, and CBS in Boston put it to the ultimate taste test with elementary school kids, pitting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made with the original white bread against sandwiches made with the new whole grain bread.

Did we have any doubt that the Wonder white would win? 8 votes for white to 2 for the whole grain.

However, kids said they certainly wouldn't be opposed to the whole grain bread. That's a good start.

A decision by the makers of Wonder Bread  to list the dairy ingredient whey on its labels far in advance of a change in its recipe has alarmed food allergy experts.

Interstate Bakeries feels it's giving the public a heads-up by listing whey in the list of ingredients, even though it expects to change the recipe by the end of the year. The allergy experts are concerned that such a move will undermine faith in labeling and could very well spur parents of children with food allergies to take dangerous chances with products. Interstate decided to add whey to the bread to improve its taste and texture.

Could Wonder Bread is going the way of so many other empty carbohydrates, disappearing into the annals of pop culture? So says NPR's Morning Edition. The company that makes the stuff, as well as Hostess Cupcakes, Twinkies, and other preservative-packed goodies, filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Interstate Bakeries has closed eight factories across the country and won't be selling Wonder Bread to Oregon and Washington starting next month.

The company blames low-carb diets and the new FDA requirements for labeling products which contain trans-fatty acids. In my opinion, the market for white bread is declining due to the wide availability of fresh-baked, artisan breads and the changing tastes (i.e., to "good") of the Pacific Northwest population. Despite my snooty foodieness, though, the slow extinction of Wonder Bread makes me a little sad.