Let’s be frank. When it comes to Memorial Day and Summer picnics and barbecues, the food item that you typically think of first isn’t kale. Instead, it’s hot dogs. If you are going to an outdoor event in America in the coming months, chances are you will see these edible cylinders of meat on the menu. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates that during peak hot dog season from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Americans will consume around seven billion hot dogs, which comes out to around 818 hot dogs per second. Hot diggity dog. But just because you will see hot dogs quite often, doesn’t mean that you should eat them every time you do.
Speaking of time, a study published in 2021 in the journal Nature Food estimated that eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life. That’s about one episode of the TV show Ted Lasso, depending on the season. Yeah, hot dogs aren’t exactly considered health foods. If someone touts an all-hot dog diet to you, be skeptical, be very skeptical.
Hot dogs are basically a wurst kind of food that you can eat. In this case, wurst means sausage and not the worst. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “sausage” as “a seasoned minced or ground meat (such as pork, beef, or poultry) stuffed in casings usually of prepared animal intestine or made into patties.” Keep in mind that not all sausages are created equal and necessarily bad for you. The health impact of a sausage depends heavily on its ingredients and how it’s made. There are various aspects of hot dogs, though, that make them put them on the much less healthful end of the sausage spectrum.
First of all, hot dogs have gone through the curing process and tend to have been highly processed. And cured and processed meats in general are not good for you. Around a decade ago, in October 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) put processed meat in “carcinogenic to humans (Group 1)” category. This meant that there was enough evidence that processed meat causes cancer in humans. In this case, the specific cancer’s colorectal cancer.
The curing process involves immersing the meat in salt, which can leave hot dogs quite high in sodium. High sodium intake can in turn raise your risk of high blood pressure, stomach cancer and various other ailments.
The curing process also involves adding sodium or potassium nitrite as a curing agent. Nitrites give hot dogs their pinkish hot dog color as well. During the whole cooking and digestion process, these nitrites can eventually be transformed into N-nitroso compounds, which are N-not-nitrosogoodforyou and have been associated with certain cancers and other health problems.
Secondly is the saturated fat content of hot dogs. When choosing the meat for the hot dogs, manufacturers don’t to opt for just leanest of meats. Instead, you can get all sorts of parts of cows, pigs, chicken, turkeys or some combination of them. One dog can typically give you over a quarter of the maximum amount of saturated fat that you should be consuming in a given day—although this can vary depending on what’s in the hot dog. Consuming saturated fat can raise your risk of heart disease, strokes and other cardiovascular issues.
Thirdly, hot dogs can have all sorts of extra ingredients that can vary from hot dog to dog. This is includes preservatives and things to enhance the taste of hot dogs such as sodium phosphate, potassium lactate and other stuff. So, check the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nutrition Facts label for that specific hot dog to understand what specifically you are consuming. Moreover, people can put different things on hot dogs such as ketchup that may include even more stuff that’s not great for you. So, pay attention what’s going down with the dog that you are eating.
One thing that you may wonder about in the case for or against hot dogs is the casing that surrounds the meat. When you slap your face with a hot dog, you’ll notice that there’s a spring to the outsides of the dog. That’s because the blended hot dog meat is stuffed into a casing to maintain the hot dog’s cylindrical shape. This case can be comprised of either natural or synthetic materials. This can include the intestines of sheep or pigs—that by the way are cleaned before they are used. The casing can alternatively be made of collagen from beef proteins, cellulose or other stuff. While such casing materials may not necessarily be bad for you, you still want to be aware what specifically may be part of or added to this casing.
Now, hot dogs do have nutritional value. A single 1.5 ounce hot dog can provides around 15 percent of the recommended daily amount of protein that you should get each day. Hot dogs are can provide Vitamin B12, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.
Ultimately, life is about moderation. You don’t have to avoid hot dogs all together. It is probably OK to have the occasional hot dog here and there. Just don’t make such a sausage fest a regular thing.
