The “Twinkie Defense”: What we know about diet and crime

In 1978, Dan White murdered San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Of this, there was no doubt. White had turned himself in, and then tearfully and horribly confessed that he had shot each man—his former colleagues—multiple times. At White’s trial in 1979, the only question was how severe the punishment would be.

White’s lawyers conducted a skillful defense during the court proceedings. They claimed that their client’s mental capacity had been reduced due to stress and severe depression. His terrible actions were not entirely under his conscious control. Therefore, a charge of first degree murder, punishable by 25 years to life in prison, was too harsh a sentence.

During the trial, the defense team questioned a psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Blinder. He told them that White was a fitness enthusiast who prided himself on eating right and staying healthy. However, during a depressive episode, White entered a “vicious circle” of eating junk food.

“Whenever he felt things weren’t going right, he would abandon his usual exercise program and good nutrition and start gorging himself on junk food: Twinkies, Coca-Cola,” Blinder testified.

Blinder later said:

“There is a significant body of evidence that large amounts of what we call junk food, high-sugar food with lots of preservatives, can trigger anti-social and even violent behavior in susceptible individuals. There’s been some studies, for example, where they’ve taken so-called career criminals and they’ve taken all their junk food and put them on milk and meat and potatoes, and their criminal records evaporate immediately.”

The press went wild, and the “Twinkie defense” lawyers felt: Were they trying to blame their client’s double murder on junk food?

The Twinkie defense

In fact, White’s legal team only cited his unhealthy delusions as a symptom of his depression, not the cause. Still, the “Twinkie defense” story stuck. And it may have paid off: White was only convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to just seven years in prison.

In a paper recently published in the International Journal of Environmental and Public Health Research, A multidisciplinary team of researchers referred to “Twinkie Defense.” In the years since the Dan White trial, scientists have explored the relationship between nutrition and crime. They have found interesting signs that there is a link between the two.

One of the earliest signs appeared in the 1980s. Under the direction of a nutritionist, the food staff secretly changed the diet at a juvenile detention facility in Virginia to reduce the amount of refined sugar given to inmates. Social scientist and criminologist Dr. Stephen J. Schoenthaler oversaw the trial. He found that prisoners who had a better diet had a 45% lower incidence of documented disciplinary actions. The study was small, however, involving only 58 young people.

That initial success led to a dozen trials at other correctional facilities. Cooks replace sugary breakfast cereals with healthier ones. Canned fruit was replaced with whole fruit. Fatty, sweet snacks gave way to vegetables, cheeses, and whole grain products.

“In the twelve correctional institutions we studied, during 1985, we found a 47% reduction in documented offenses, infractions, and other indicators of antisocial behavior,” said Schoenthaler in an academic interview published in 2023 .“These included reductions in overt violence, acts of theft, verbal assault, and insubordination to correctional personnel. Collectively, these studies involved over 8000 young people.”

Schoenthaler later conducted two randomized placebo-controlled trials that provided vitamin supplements to some inmates at correctional facilities and a numbing pill to others. There were significant reductions in rule violations among subjects consuming the supplement.

Many research teams around the world have since found that proper diet and nutrition can help reduce rule breaking and aggression within prison populations.

But today, most of the United States spends less than $3 per resident per day on food. Such meager funding means that almost all prisoners are given solid, ultra-processed goods. Could investing in better prison nutrition save money overall? Schoenthaler thinks so.

“A single preventable violation resulting in four months in jail or additional jail time could cost US$10,000 or more. If you look at this through the larger lens of prevention and treatment along the entire criminal justice continuum, then the financial savings would be incalculable,” he said.

What about among the general population? Could proper nutrition prevent criminal acts? Various studies have shown that eating nutritious whole foods rather than high-fat processed foods improves mental health, mood, and academic outcomes—all of which play a role in the likelihood of committing a crime.

“Is it a coincidence that the 10 states with the highest obesity rates in 2021—Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Dakota, Alabama, Missouri, and Ohio—are all in the top tier of states with the highest incarceration rates in 2021?” The researchers behind the recent review asked.

There is no single cause of antisocial behavior, of course, which makes the “Twinkie defense” highly questionable. But based on research done, nutrition seems to be at least an indirect factor. So eat right. It will help keep you sane, and possibly by extension, out of jail.