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Americans Are in the Dark About the Dangers of Hot Dogs, Survey Finds | Only 11% could name a specific health risk linked to hot dogs and other processed meats, such as cancer.
Traditionally, this part of the South (I'm in VA) didn't eat a lot of rice dishes, and it's become more of a thing since other cultural foods have grown in popularity. Same to tortillas and soy. Beans are, but actually, beans and hot dogs are a common pairing if you make it a dinner night, along with coleslaw and fries.
So yeah there's a lot of good options now, and I'd bet younger people do eat them more. Southern food wise though, hot dogs are a very cheap and quick cozy classic. A lot of our other foods take a lot more time to cook and are pricier. I don't think we eat it as much as WV, but I get it.
Checking my local Meijer right now...Can of black beans, $1, 90 cals, 6g protein. 10 pack of hot dogs, $3.39, 1200 calories (354/$), 50g protein (14.75/$).
Tortillas and rice and going to give you as much protein. Healthy, no doubt, but not cheaper.
Canned beans are nice yeah, you can heat and eat. So are hotdogs, so it's a fair point of comparison.
But if you'd like to use dry beans: a pound of dried black beans can be had for about $1.50, has about 1500 calories and 17g of protein. You'd need to eat 3# to get close to 50g of protein, or $4.50. Plus you have to cook them, which increases the cost. Still not cheaper, even if you ignore the energy costs of boiling them for an hour.
I think a can of black beans is more like 500- 600 calories and definitely more than 9 grams of protein. What size can are you looking at? But your larger point I think still might stand though I dont feel like doing the math
When I was in college, aldi had a 32 pack of hot dogs for $3 and some change. We would buy 2 packs at a time and ate nothing but that, tuna fish, and oatmeal… this was around 2009
That's wiiiild I have had streaks where I enjoy them and maybe eat them a couple of times in a 1-2 week window with the leftover buns/links leapfrogging, but I can't imagine eating 5 a day for the last month and just going "Man I really wish I could just keep eating these at this rate forever"
That's probably the general perception, but they don't even contain much protein; something like 5~8 grams in a typical hot dog. It's mostly carbs and fat.
Carbs? I wasn't aware my hebrew nationals had grains or sugars added. Fat, unhealthy levels of sodium, nitrates, etc, yeah. But "mostly carbs" seems wrong.
Someone can fry up a hotdog and eat it and enjoy it. It’s simple to cook and doesn’t need seasoning. The other things you listed need preparation. That’s the difference. A can of lentils can be consumed straight but it isn’t palatable that way to most people. It needs flavoring which is more work.
I am not saying this in defense of hot dogs, I don’t even eat them. I’m explaining why hot dogs are picked over the items you listed.
Hot dogs are also precooked. The only required prep work is opening the package. I'd rather eat nearly anything else, but for the people not grossed out by them, I can see why they are appealing.
At 3 dollars per pound for hotdogs that's the same cost for protein by weight, cooked vs cooked.
But we don't really eat "weight", as that's mostly a water contest. We eat calories.
Both hotdogs & quinoa have the same percentage of calories as protein.
So you can eat the same calories of both things and get the same amount of protein.
__
But hey if we want to argue the details of only one example I gave why not pick beans?
At 2/dollars per pound (canned not dry) and 20-25 percent protein they destroy hotdogs.
An average doesn’t mean half of the people are eating more and half are eating less. That’d be the median. In this case the average or mean could mean that everyone else averages like .5 and there’s one dude that eats a million.
You could tell me that hot dogs, bacon, beer, being out in the sun, and grilling/smoking food all give you cancer. Which is all true, but we moderate and enjoy those things anyway because life is meant to be enjoyed
If ten hot dogs a year killed you it would be worse than cigarettes considering the average for the country is 70.
Ironically the whole celery replacement for nitrates is just as bad since our bodies can't tell the difference. In case any of our vegan friends felt left out or anyone was unaware
39% to 43% percent of American will develop cancer
There is a difference between dying in your sleep at 82 and wasting away from metastatic cancer at 63. I watched my father suffer and slowly die from colon cancer.
As a intelligent human being your primary responsibility should be protecting your life and mitagating your risks for suffering and dying a horrible death.
Man, even a hot dog every single day of your life only elevates your colorectal cancer risk from 45/1000 to 53/1000. The number is 18% relative risk increase if you eat 50g of processed meat daily. Which sounds alarming until you convert it to absolute terms.
The takeaway here is moderation. Don't drink every day, don't eat processed meat for every meal.
There are people who will do everything right and still get a miserable draw at some point in their lives. There are people who do nothing right and live a long time.
If not eating hot dogs makes you feel better then by all means don't eat them. But I will take the occasional hot dog/prosciutto/ground beef.
You're better off securing your furniture so it won't fall on you. Or taking public trans instead of driving. Or getting a companion pet. Or just walking an extra mile a week.
Or selling your cheap synthetic couch/mattress & getting something healthy.
Seeing the dentist more often. The list of more effective ways to protect your health is endless. So straying from it is never efficient.
Going from 20-30 hotdogs per year to zero is statistically insignificant.
According to Gemini (🤷♂️) it takes approx 1 hotdog per day over a lifetime to raise your risk 18%. The baseline risk is 5%. So your new total risk for colon cancer based on your daily hotdog habit skyrockets from 5% to... 5.9%.
Now you list all the daily things in your life with a similar risk/effort/reward profile like touching receipt papers, 4 minutes of Sun UV, vapors from cleaning product & gas stations & traffic & poor air quality, 3 minutes less exercise, the aluminum in your antiperspirant, on and on and on.
Which ones should you pick to worry about? It'll drive you nuts. Can't just do them all.
Then we could start listing all the things with the same risk/effort/reward profile as just 2 hotdogs per month. That list would be almost everything we do. Cheese would be on that list. But mosquito bites wouldn't.. they're too risky for either list.
We should all cut back on all that stuff.
And nobody without a psychiatrist should be eating hotdogs daily. But 2 per month is just a waste of energy to worry about.
Don't tell me what to do. Social security is almost insolvent. Medicare is being dismantled. All our safety nets are being destroyed. Current commerce secutary is planning on building "forever factories"
>Lutnick: “It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future. This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, your kids work here, and your grandkids work here."
You want to be unjamming the conveyor belt at 90 while your grandchild gets seniority over you that's great for you, all in the family or whatever, but the current world trajectory shows me to smoke em if you got em. And I'll take a hot link today.
It's not just poverty but also lower levels of education. These factors can be expected to increase most causes of morbidity and mortality including violence (and not only for ethnic minority groups of course).
according to the National Cancer Institute, West Virginia has roughly a 12% higher cancer rate, 21% higher colorectal cancer rate (associated with high consumption of processed meat), and 29% higher colorectal cancer mortality than the US overall
edit to add: they also have a 20% higher rate of stomach cancer (similarly associated with processed meat) and a 59% higher rate of stomach cancer mortality than the rest of the US
plus 32% higher esophageal cancer rate (another one connected to processed meats) and 43% higher esophageal cancer mortality
West Virginia is heavily polluted frok many sources, in addition to a large portion of the population working in the mines. Hard to nail down how much each cause has contributed
as i said to another commenter who mentioned alcohol consumption: fo sho, there’s a lot going on there (still, hot dogs every day probably isn’t helping)
West Virginia is one of the highest states for cancer burden. I believe they have ~500 cases per 100k people which is something like 10-15% above the national average.
The statistic they were told by conservative media is that West Virginia has a higher GDP per capita, which is technically true
West Virginia does have a high GDP per capita due to it's 3 largest sectors: Government spending, healthcare, and welfare. Mining, the largest productive sector, doesn't even Crack the top 3
West Virginia is literally a welfare state. The residents refuse to train to do work other than mining, so they end up on welfare as mines close
This is what happens when you blindly parrot statistics without understanding them. You embarrass yourself by saying something wildly inaccurate
Stop listening to biased sources without verifying anything. A tiny bit of research would have helped you understand and contextualize the cherry picked stat you were fed
We can’t get Americans to realize their government stopped following orders, hotdogs are like 45th on the list of things Americans need to learn before the world catches fire.
My kid is so unbelievably picky but will eat hot dogs. He eats a couple a week usually, interspersed between peanut butter sandwiches, mozzarella quesadillas, and plain buttered noodles. Am I a terrible parent? Probably. Am I very stressed about his nutrition? Yes. Am I relieved he will at least get some occasional protein? Also yes. 😩
Nah you’re ok. I’m a parent too and it is so hard when I was raised on “meat in a can”. You are doing what we are too, real food as much as possible and honesty when they are old enough to make better decisions. It’s all we can do in a world where companies are selling death to our kids via advertisement crafted to convince them.
I realize there are worse problems to deal with, but we grew up poor and had to eat whatever, and thankfully I liked vegetables so eating just wasn't that hard, so I never realized how hard having a picky eater can be.
I never imagined that I would have a picky kid, and I definitely was judgemental towards parents who (now I realize) were struggling big time with getting their kids to eat.
It seems like it shouldn't be that hard to feed your kids, and then you get one who literally will just go hungry day after day if you try to force "you're having what we're having" every day, and you literally see how skinny they are and the part of you that biologically needs your child to eat is just freaking out all the time, and so you let them eat the hot dogs and butter and white pasta and pray that the long term effects will be less bad than childhood malnutrition.
I’d echo all of that. Even with no peer pressure it is hard so my 3 year old now will sometimes eat our healthy dinners but yeah sometimes just won’t. I am trying to help solve this by teaching him to not trust any commercials or advertisements. He boos them if he sees them on any app (like I taught him) because I don’t want him to think corporations care about him like my parents assumed they did (if it’s on a store shelf it’s safe right?).
But peer pressure is gonna be a whole other deal when I have to be like “yeah well Todd’s parents would let him drink roundup so I don’t care what they say” lol.
Hang in there mom (assumption sorry if I’m wrong), we’re gonna get these kids through this gauntlet of awful marketing, preservatives, and backwards culture. If they get some Nitrates along the way we can ask forgiveness later, but for now we have to survive and as I say to my kid sometimes in frustration “you HAVE to eat! If you don’t I can’t keep you!” I think I need to retire that one before I scar the poor boy 😅
I laughed about booing the ads, that's so relatable - though instead of booing them, we go, "ewww, an ad." Recently I showed my son how a really cool game ad was dishonest when he begged for the game anyway and I let him download it, and of course it sucked. It is sad, seeing their sweet little hearts realize that some things in life and tricky and dishonest on purpose.
Good luck to you too. When our son was 2 he would eat anything, and it just dropped off from there. I hope that that doesn't end up being your experience, and that instead, your kid will keep eating more and more of those healthy dinners. And if not - yeah. We do the best we can with what we can.
The massive increase in colon cancer in Gen X and Millennials compared to older generations is directly linked to an increase in nitrite consumption which is commonly used as preservative in processed meats including hotdogs, so the general lack of understanding of hotdogs is literally killing us.
Americans are intentionally in the dark about the health dangers of the chemicals in our food and other products. The general guidance for manufacturers is do what you want until you get caught.
Traveled abroad extensively a few years ago. Every country you go to outside of the U.S., the same products you get here are different. Different colors, different textures, different ingredients. This is because the U.S. allows all the crap in your food that other countries banned years ago due to being TOXIC. People who think the U.S. is the greatest country in the world have simply never stepped foot in a different country.
It's the classic 'reactive regulatory model' vs 'precautionary principle.' We wait until the class-action lawsuit happens before the FDA even considers taking a look
Ya, but for how much longer do you trust the legal system to deal with this, and not just do what Trump says? How much longer do you expect that our institutions will continue properly checking and testing our food?
This stuff should be getting better over time, or at least it could. I have little faith it will though.
It's not pedantry. All food is chemicals. So if you're going to say that "chemicals in the food" are a problem then you're going to have explain what you're actually talking about.
Yes specificity is always preferable but it's not exactly massive mental lifting to understand that they are probably talking about known toxins and manufacturing processes that cause the foods to be unhealthy.
"Chemicals", "toxins" and "unhealthy" are all ill defined words that people with zero knowledge of chemistry use without knowing what they mean. That's my entire point.
Surely you're aware that some chemicals are more dangerous, or worse for you in general than others. Considering the state of the education system in the US though it's entirely possible you may not, given that is the entire point of the article everyone is commenting on.
Yeah evidence indicates as little as 50g (<2 oz) of processed meat a day or 350g (12 oz) a week is bad (significantly increases risk of colorectal cancer).
If you're consuming the typical American diet that's very common, and many Americans also eat a lot more than that.
I think the problem is everyone agrees with the whole 'everything in moderation', but few realise that moderation is actually way lower than they think.
Roast beef isn’t as bad because it’s usually whole muscle, you’re just getting preservatives. If you can get store roasted then it isn’t processed at all.
It includes anything smoked, salted, or cured. Which is a really broad definition and, like everything around the word processed or natural, I have a lot of skepticism.
I am sure there are offending items in there, and I am also sure the words are so broad they are not useful.
I am also not yet convinced the science has caught a causal mechanism, rather than a correlation. For example, bacon is a processed meat. I rather suspect the people that eat enough bacon to get cancer from it have significant other comorbidities.
Untangling whether the bacon specifically caused billy bob to get cancer or if it was being 150 pounds overweight and not exercising for 4 decades is....not exactly conclusive science just yet.
I have bacon multiple times a week, but I’m also on the low end of my healthy BMI range, and I workout 3-5 days a week. Clearly, bacon may have chemicals that are bad for you, but it’s not making people overweight on its own.
I always wondered if I was eating enough vegetables, then I checked serving sizes. I’ve been eating 3 or 4 servings at a time. Serving sizes are small!
If you bring up the whole "processed meat causes cancer" thing on reddit there'll usually be some sort of deflection or dismissal of it. It's a deliberate ignorance not a simple oh I didn't know/misinterpreted ignorance. They love their hot dogs and bacon and don't want to hear it.
And yea that's just on reddit, but Americans on reddit are more liberal and less anti-science than the average so the average response is probably even more dismissive.
yea and donna meat in europe is super popular, its not rven the middle eastern full cuts of lamb its mechanically reconstructed , ive had quite a few arguments about why thats the lowest of the low form of a cut of meat, its actually normalised now that its accepted as real meat
It's the spices and seasonings. Put a vegan dog between a sourdough bun with mustard and onions, then TELL me you have a significantly different sensory experience than doing the same with a mix of animal blood vessels, mechanically separated trimmings, rectums, etc..
Yeah I don’t understand why there aren’t good vegan hot dogs. They all are missing that snap/bite to them, but the beyond sausages solve that problem…so why no hot dog still?
That said, cancer risk doesn’t seem much lower for beyond sausage. I even made the carrot dogs once (which were actually amazing and I HATE carrots) but you have to soak them in liquid smoke overnight, so not even carrot dog is without risk.
The texture is definitely different but aside from I think the main problem with most vegan food is that they're trying to appeal to two very different audiences, there's people who want a healthy option and there's people who want a non animal option that tastes good. No one complains that no animal cruelty is involved in Oreos or french fries because they taste good even if they're terribly unhealthy.
Whenever there's a choice between lower risk and taste, I always choose the former.
For me, condiments and spices largely override texture and taste (of protein source) considerations. That wasn't instantaneous; arrived there after ~5 years.
You’ll never win Americans over to vegetarian with meat substitutes because the meat option always tastes better. I’ve incorporated more vegetarian options for my meals by embracing food from other cultures that already have vegetables as the star. Indian, Thai, and Japanese cuisines offer dishes that are technically vegetarian but are also so delicious I don’t even think about them. I eat them because of great flavors. I’ve had weeks where I realized I was fully vegetarian without thinking of it.
You can think whatever you’d like. I’m just saying that if they taste like chemicals instead of meat, you might have bought some bad dogs. Or maybe you’ve tried every brand on the planet and confirmed they all taste the same to your palate.
Sure, but it’s become such a misleading buzzword. A lot of “chemicals” are not harmful to people. People just like to complain that ingredient lists include words they don’t know without actually discovering that those things aren’t always toxic like they assume.
It’s been rough for years in the world of nutrition because food scientists for companies are coming up with ways to increase value of products, and it’s not always toxic like people assume, but because chemical names are unknown, people just complain and follow TikTok informers that lie in order to sling their own random products.
Preaching to the choir. I’m a scientist myself, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped while out in the field and had to answer questions about these buzzwords they hear on the news or on Facebook. Most people aren’t particularly media literate, let alone scientifically literate enough to understand that these sound bites they hear are taken out of context or sometimes just purposefully misleading.
With that said, we’re talking about a chemical taste and not the chemicals themselves, and I think everyone can understand what we mean by something having a chemical taste. Even if that could technically refer to any taste imaginable, since everything is a chemical.
You lose people by pretending that taste is a rational choice. No one chooses what tastes good to them. You eat a food and find out if you like it. People get bothered enough when told that their favorite foods are harmful to them, but then also insisting that their taste preferences are somehow wrong is a bridge too far for nearly everyone.
Ok well why do you assume I have the same taste as you do then? To me it literally tastes like chemicals and then I get downvoted to hell for simply having taste buds that better reflect reality.
>why do you assume I have the same taste as you do then
I assumed no such thing. When did I say that?
Taste is subjective and we all have unique preferences. As such, no preference is objectively wrong.
But also, what does "chemicals" mean in terms of flavor? Define the taste of "chemicals". Is sodium a "chemical"? Sucrose? Dihydrogen monoxide? From a chemistry standpoint, literally everything you ever ingest is made of chemicals.
The risks are not the same though keep that in mind. Cigarettes increases your risk of lung cancer 1500% - 3000%. A hotdog a day increases your risk of colon cancer by 20%. Your risk goes from 5% to 6%.
The WHO is sure all these things cause cancer. But they don't all have the same level of health risks. Some are way more dangerous than others.
If you're comparing 1 hot dog a day, you should also specify the number of cigarettes. For both it matters how much. And remember, it's not just hot dogs, it's all processed meat. So daily consumption for many people is more than 1.
That’s what they think herd immunity is (I can actually hear Uncle Swanson telling me that in his voice “about dem chilleh dawgs wid un-yons”) while they drink water from the tap next to a coal sludge spill.
Genuine question… I love not dogs. (Meatless) I actually prefer the taste over a meat one (I know, I’m weird). Is there anything saying they cause cancer too? Is it the preservatives? Or is the cancer risk due to the mechanically separated meat practices/chemicals they use vs. veggie dogs?
Vegans have lower risks for many cancers compared to omnivores but much higher risk for colorectal cancer. I’d imagine not all veggie dogs are equal, some worse than others, but the average veggie dog probably presents less of a risk than the average meat dog. My understanding is that the curing process is the biggest problem with processed meats (but surely not the only one).
Yes. This is important. Hot dogs are literally as dangerous as smoking. It's not one of those random clickbait articles saying everything is cancerous to some degree. This is a serious one.
The cancer risk from hot dogs is tiny compared to the cancer risk of a cigarette. Class 1 just means it’s been proven to cause cancer, not that the risk is inherently the same
I assume you mean if it doesn't have a nutrition label it must be a fresh or raw food, therefore not processed to be packaged, your point being that whole fresh food is healthier because it does not have any added preservatives, colors, seasoning etc.
I mean I guess, but people eat a lot more than those things. If you are eating anything that is not just base ingredients then the label is incredibly important for dozens of reasons
On average 15% of people who smoke will develop lung cancer
And up to 90% of lung cancer cases are related to smoking.
These are not the same thing at all. Otherwise there would be clear stats showing most cases of colon cancer are from eating processed meats.
The leading cause of colon cancer is genetics and damaged DNA as a result of aging, not hotdogs. Diet does increase risk, but that's not the same as smoking which directly causes cancer.
Are people under the impression that hot dogs are actually healthy, or are they just unable to name specifics of why they're bad? That's a huge difference
Attitudes like this is the reason that 39%-42% of Americans develop cancer.
If you don't care about your own health and longevity that is one thing, but don't spread lies that will cause others to die a horrible and painful death.
Being poor isn't as bad as your body slowly rotting away, painfully struggling for each breath, lingering on in pain and fear because your heart is strong while your body is so riddled with metastatic cancer that the doctors can't do anything.
I watched my father die of colon cancer. I remember watching my mother cry at his bedside for months as she watch the love of her life suffering totally unable to help him or ease his pain. It was horrible.
Not eating hot dogs is a small price to pay to avoid that terrible fate. Especially when there are so many other delicious healthy foods to enjoy.
Hint, there’s a fuck ton more that can lead to colon cancer besides hot dogs, but it wouldn’t be much of a crusade without the lowest form of bogeyman.
But I am sure your father ate hot dogs by the truckload.
He smoked cigarettes his whole adult life and drank two to three beers everyday. Every meal included red meat and he ate lots of processed meat like hot dogs and deli meats. He also lived in houses that had popcorn ceilings made from abestos and every meal was cooked in Teflon pans and plastic containers.
We are so surrounded by poisons and carcinogens it's no wonder that 40% of Americans develop cancers in their 60s.
The point is to try to develop habits than reduce your risks of dying a horrible death not to say nothing matters we are all going to die anyway.
And I never been that impressed with hot dogs anyway. It was easy to stop eating them when I learned they were carcinogen.
“My dad lived in the worst possible environment, and couldn’t control his own habits.”
You know you aren’t proving the point you think you’re making, right? Eating a hot dog is not the same risk as smoking a cigarette, and you are clearly looking for a strawman otherwise.
This is so exaggerated. The widely cited 18% increased risk of colorectal cancer from regularly eating hot dogs is a tricky use of numbers. Basically they found that your lifetime risk of colorectal cancer went up from something like 4% to 4.72% if you ate hot dogs/processed meat regularly, and quantified that as an 18% increase. If people knew the truth they would laugh off these scare tactics.
Let's face it, you know they don't want us to eat meat because it demands more resources than foods like beans. They saw how the fear of cancer dramatically cut down smoking. So now if they don't want you to consume something, they just to try and find a way to tell you that you will get cancer if you enjoy it. Hot dogs are a very popular, cheap form of meat, so the dogs gotta go.
If you roll dice a lot, loke playing d&d, you find 0.72% on top of 4% is very significant. 4% is 1 of 25. 4.42% is 1 out of 21. So imagine you're in a group of 20 or 24 other people and one of you will get cancer. You really want to be with the group of 20 because or hot dogs? And then add evey other choice of that kind that you make to watch that group shrink and shrink until it's 1 in 10...? Or 1 in 5...? While it's the pork lobby's endless advertising that convinced you that you want hod dogs in the first place, associated it with America and masculinity and created BBQ culture. So yeah, you're 100% right that if people were told the percent, they would laugh it off, which would be a deadly mistake that would kill millions of people... because people are terrible at understanding probability based on numbers. I hope that helps.
What’s my healthy alternatives for hot dogs bc I would happily make a change if there is something close to hot dogs I can use bc hot dogs are delicious, but I do think it’s easily just as much of how I layer them with toppings that make them delicious and not just the dog itself.
When things in your country have become so unaffordable to the point that people have costco hot dog money and thats it, nobody gives a shit whats in hot dogs. We all know they're not healthy and intentionally don't think about what makes up a hotdog when we eat them bc we know its disgusting.
Same goes for most sandwich meats. The stuff that's the worst for you is usually the cheapest and sandwiches make for easy meals for times you are too exhausted to cook, and/or to pack your kids lunches when kids are notoriously picky.
I am a helluva lot more concerned about the climate crisis that is VERY RAPIDLY looming over us, my country's nosedive into full on fascism, and my rights as a woman being on the line, than whether I'll die from eating too many processed meats. Half the time I'd rather be dead than dealing with the current state of the world on top of my personal problems anyway so 🤷♀️
You know, a lot of people say to me, "Hey, you travel around all the time, you must not be able to get good foods to eat." But I love hot dogs and you can get a hot dog any place, so it's easy for me to eat, right?
But people still come up, they say, "Oh, don't eat hot dogs. They have really weird things in them, you know, but it doesn't bother me because I love animal lips."
And I guess rat feces is one about my favorite things. I guess I do enjoy it.
Perhaps it could have just headlined “Americans are in the Dark”. It would explain a lot about the government and economy right now, starting with Trump.
People should be free to enjoy smoking and drinking, just know it will have health consequences in the long term, just like eating hot dogs and sausage.
This speaks to the problem with a truly free market in that is relies entirely on consumers making informed choices to drive the morality of a given economy.
The ignorance of consumers on the dangers of hot dogs is a great example. Who is supposed to be providing the information that hot dogs are dangerous to eat? We certainly cannot rely on hot dog manufacturers to voluntarily disclose all the dangers of their product.
So how is a consumer in the truly free market even supposed to uncover information about a product in the first place in order to make the kind of informed decision free market capitalists insist should be the only driving force of the economy?
We desperately need independent (read: non-profit driven) governing bodies to keep businesses in line yet those consumer protections are eroding more quickly now than ever before in my lifetime.
That’s crazy considering the repeated amount of info my feed gives me about processed foods and colorectal cancer rates increasing in people younger than 50
"With the Fourth of July coming up, there’s almost certain to be a hidden and dangerous threat lurking in your refrigerator or freezer. I’m talking, of course, about hot dogs.
A new poll this week, commissioned by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), looked at Americans’ attitudes toward hot dogs. More than half the respondents reported eating hot dogs at least once a month, it showed, while nearly 90% were unaware of the specific health problems associated with the food, such as a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. People, particularly kids, should try to limit their consumption of hot dogs and other highly processed meats, doctors with the Physicians Committee say.
“Because children’s bodies and eating habits are still developing, early and frequent exposure to red and processed meats—like hot dogs—can cause lasting harm,” said Stephanie McBurnett, a registered dietician and the nutrition educator for the Physicians Committee, in a statement from the group.
Why are hot dogs bad?
Hot dogs are a prime example of processed meat, or meat that’s been preserved and treated through various methods like smoking, curing, or salting. And sadly, research has consistently linked the regular consumption of these foods to a higher risk of many health issues.
According to the American Cancer Society, both processed and red meat are strongly linked to colorectal cancer; some research has further suggested they can raise the risk of breast, pancreatic, prostate, and stomach cancer. The World Health Organization formally recognizes processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen (the strongest level of certainty). And these foods also seem to increase our chances of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and possibly even dementia.
The average American, however, appears to be in the dark about the above, according to this latest poll, which was conducted last week on behalf of the Physicians Committee by the company Morning Consult. The online poll involved more than 2,200 adults among the general population, according to Morning Consult. People were asked how often they ate hot dogs and whether they were aware of the health risks associated with them.
Overall, 59% of people said they ate hot dogs at least once a month, while roughly a quarter reported eating them at least once a week. Men were more likely to eat them two to three times a week than women (51% to 38%), as were people between 35 and 44 compared to any other age group (52%).
A whopping 40% of respondents said they weren’t aware of any health risks linked to hot dogs, while another 49% said they were aware of health risks in general but couldn’t think of any specific ones; just 11% could list these risks, with the most commonly named being cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, and high cholesterol.
Safer alternatives
Of course, moderation can go a long way toward having a healthier diet. So if you love a good frankfurter, as I do, maybe you can cut back on your consumption, especially if you’re an every-day dogger, as 5% of respondents in this poll reported they were. And not all hope is lost if you love hot dogs but want to stay as health-conscious as possible, McBurnett says. Though vegan or plant-based hot dog meat alternatives also tend to be processed, they’re safer overall if they’re replacing the traditional meat kind.
“On the bright side,” she said, “there are a multitude of healthier hot dog alternatives available these days, from commercially prepared veggie dogs that can be found in most supermarkets, to tasty whole food homemade versions made from marinating carrots in soy sauce, liquid smoke, and spices.”
The Physicians Committee even has its own recipe for those homemade carrot dogs."
Why is “leftover stuff” a bad thing? Organ meat is considered “healthy” by most people and it’s no worse than any other part of the animal that we choose to use.
Also, what is “highly processed”? I get what you’re trying to say I guess but it just bothers me that people use vague terms that don’t really mean much and act like it’s so obvious what they’re saying.
Sauerkraut and fermented food could be classified as processed but they’re great for you. Same with with something like whey protein, frozen veggies, and canned food; it is processed but there is really nothing wrong with it. On the other hand Pork lard can be considered all natural but you shouldn’t just eat a bowl full of it. What is bad about hotdogs is most likely the nitrates and fat content, not that it’s “leftover stuff and highly processed”. That being said, the effect size is incredibly low, yes they say it’s like 18% increase or something like that but the actual risk doesn’t even go up more than a fraction of a percent from baseline risk. So we know nitrates cause cancer, but eat at your own risk because even if you eat them every day it barely changes your chances. If you enjoy a hot dog from time to time, you shouldn’t have to feel shame, guilt, or fear lol
What is the definition of highly processed and ultra processed? It seems like it changes every time you ask someone. I fully agree with you that minimally processed whole foods are probably best and that if people want to eat “terrible food” it should be at their own discretion, I just dont like the fear-mongering when people can’t give a solid definition of what makes something scary. Totally respect your opinions though and I think we agree on more than we disagree
americans in general are just dumber than you would think. especially adults that have been out of school for decades or never went to school. its really hard to overstate how dumb some americans are. millions of people in america live in super rural areas, have next to no communication with the outside world, never went to school never learned anything, have grown up in the same town their great great grandparents grew up in, usually in a super impoverished area. people so out of touch with things they dont know who the president is, how the government functions, literally anything outside of their small bit of life they dont know how to do. these are the people that help us get results like, 15% of americans thinking chocolate milk comes from brown cows or that the sun revolves around the earth. people can be stupid, especially when it comes to their own health, which even smarter americans have trouble keeping up with.
Americans are ill informed about nutrition due to the number of influencers and amount of disinformation out there. It also doesn't help that students can graduate from (some, not all) med schools with no classes in nutrition (meaning they may also be ill informed).
I think we just don’t care. What’s the fucking point. We’ll all be fucking dead or languishing in a prison camp in 10-20 years. Literally does anyone expect a bright future worth living for? Lol
I eat almost only processed or frozen foods, drink diet soda and I am fine. You people worry to much about the small stuff, getting fat is much worse than eating processed foods.
Nothingbutsocks | 9 hours ago
Does this mean there are higher cancer diagnosis in West Virginia?
According to google, 481 hotdogs PER year per resident is wiiiild.
DatBoiii4 | 8 hours ago
You’re telling me the AVERAGE WV resident eats 1.3 hot dogs per day??? Wtf
So half of them are eating MORE hot dogs per day?
This is the craziest stat I’ve ever heard lol
EineKline | 8 hours ago
As a native who left...its the widespread poverty...that and probably the chili dogs.
-need-sleep | 4 hours ago
Yup, hard to find a cheaper protein source than a big pack of bar S wieners
Veganeconow | 4 hours ago
Beans, rice, soy, tortillas, lots of good, healthy, filling options
YanCoffee | 3 hours ago
Traditionally, this part of the South (I'm in VA) didn't eat a lot of rice dishes, and it's become more of a thing since other cultural foods have grown in popularity. Same to tortillas and soy. Beans are, but actually, beans and hot dogs are a common pairing if you make it a dinner night, along with coleslaw and fries.
So yeah there's a lot of good options now, and I'd bet younger people do eat them more. Southern food wise though, hot dogs are a very cheap and quick cozy classic. A lot of our other foods take a lot more time to cook and are pricier. I don't think we eat it as much as WV, but I get it.
somasomore | 3 hours ago
Checking my local Meijer right now...Can of black beans, $1, 90 cals, 6g protein. 10 pack of hot dogs, $3.39, 1200 calories (354/$), 50g protein (14.75/$). Tortillas and rice and going to give you as much protein. Healthy, no doubt, but not cheaper.
EquipLordBritish | 3 hours ago
Dry beans are usually better for price. Canned beans are nice because they're ready to go, just need to be heated.
allonsyyy | 2 hours ago
Canned beans are nice yeah, you can heat and eat. So are hotdogs, so it's a fair point of comparison.
But if you'd like to use dry beans: a pound of dried black beans can be had for about $1.50, has about 1500 calories and 17g of protein. You'd need to eat 3# to get close to 50g of protein, or $4.50. Plus you have to cook them, which increases the cost. Still not cheaper, even if you ignore the energy costs of boiling them for an hour.
cfungus91 | an hour ago
I think a can of black beans is more like 500- 600 calories and definitely more than 9 grams of protein. What size can are you looking at? But your larger point I think still might stand though I dont feel like doing the math
Prudent-Marsupial-42 | 4 hours ago
Is it?
Kitfishto | 3 hours ago
You must not be from the middle of fucking nowhere…
GrumpleDumpkin | 49 minutes ago
When I was in college, aldi had a 32 pack of hot dogs for $3 and some change. We would buy 2 packs at a time and ate nothing but that, tuna fish, and oatmeal… this was around 2009
lapideous | 8 hours ago
It’s gotta be like 10% of the population eating 5 a day
Tulkes | 7 hours ago
That's wiiiild I have had streaks where I enjoy them and maybe eat them a couple of times in a 1-2 week window with the leftover buns/links leapfrogging, but I can't imagine eating 5 a day for the last month and just going "Man I really wish I could just keep eating these at this rate forever"
HelloImadinosaur | 4 hours ago
It’s all just one guy named Timmy.
spirit_of_a_goat | 7 hours ago
It's because they are an incredibly cheap source of protein.
unthused | 6 hours ago
That's probably the general perception, but they don't even contain much protein; something like 5~8 grams in a typical hot dog. It's mostly carbs and fat.
looselyhuman | 5 hours ago
Carbs? I wasn't aware my hebrew nationals had grains or sugars added. Fat, unhealthy levels of sodium, nitrates, etc, yeah. But "mostly carbs" seems wrong.
unthused | 5 hours ago
I'm sure it varies quite a bit by brand/quality, I just googled a random hot dog nutrition label and it was more carbs than protein.
Like the bun probably has 3~4 grams which isn't far off from the dog itself.
TheRealGreenArrow420 | 4 hours ago
Meat doesnt have carbs. Carbs are in the bun. Source: am diabetic. I count carbs to stay alive.
FullConfection3260 | 30 minutes ago
Everything has carbs in it, but things like hot dogs tend to be more fat than either.
DreadfulDuder | 5 hours ago
... Where would the carbs come from? Unless you're including the buns.
Congenital0ptimist | 7 hours ago
But relative to what? Beans? Greek yogurt? cottage cheese? Canned fish? Quinoa?
You'd have to be buying the absolute bottom of the barrel 3 dollar a pound hotdogs. Somebody is though. 🤢🤢
neloish | 6 hours ago
Hotdogs can be bought in bulk and frozen so they last for months.
xnmyl | 5 hours ago
Beans, quinoa, lentils, canned fish, and many other cheap protein sources last indefinitely, without taking up fridge/freezer space
Hot dogs are neither a good, nor cheap source of protein
madelynashton | 5 hours ago
Someone can fry up a hotdog and eat it and enjoy it. It’s simple to cook and doesn’t need seasoning. The other things you listed need preparation. That’s the difference. A can of lentils can be consumed straight but it isn’t palatable that way to most people. It needs flavoring which is more work.
I am not saying this in defense of hot dogs, I don’t even eat them. I’m explaining why hot dogs are picked over the items you listed.
asyork | 5 hours ago
Hot dogs are also precooked. The only required prep work is opening the package. I'd rather eat nearly anything else, but for the people not grossed out by them, I can see why they are appealing.
gerkletoss | 5 hours ago
>quinoa
>cheap
Lmao
Congenital0ptimist | 5 hours ago
$2.88 per pound dry uncooked weight.
As food served then it's about 1 dollar per pound.
https://www.costco.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-quinoa-45-lbs/100336580
What did you think was funny?
gerkletoss | 4 hours ago
Yeah and then it's qbout 4.5% protein as a percentage of cooked weight.
Congenital0ptimist | 4 hours ago
At 3 dollars per pound for hotdogs that's the same cost for protein by weight, cooked vs cooked.
But we don't really eat "weight", as that's mostly a water contest. We eat calories.
Both hotdogs & quinoa have the same percentage of calories as protein. So you can eat the same calories of both things and get the same amount of protein.
__
But hey if we want to argue the details of only one example I gave why not pick beans?
At 2/dollars per pound (canned not dry) and 20-25 percent protein they destroy hotdogs.
And beans go really great with Quinoa.
Congenital0ptimist | 4 hours ago
Dude why do you keep hitting the downvote on dry factual info?
Are you 12?
woah_man | 8 hours ago
And I can't think of anything besides the WKUK sketch where Timmy eats 7 hotdogs per day.
Is that bad? Well....it's not good.
CatsBye90 | 6 hours ago
I mean, look at the average West Virginian.
Melinoe2016 | 6 hours ago
An average doesn’t mean half of the people are eating more and half are eating less. That’d be the median. In this case the average or mean could mean that everyone else averages like .5 and there’s one dude that eats a million.
DatBoiii4 | 6 hours ago
I thought about editing my comment because I knew someone would eventually point that out lol
Nothingbutsocks | 5 hours ago
Oh of course I get that, but those are the stats given by Google. Obviously there could be a single person eating 400 a year and then no one else.
MrAngrySadHappyFace | an hour ago
I doubt ive eaten more than 400 hotdogs in my life lol.
PandaCultural8311 | an hour ago
Doesn't necessarily mean that half are eating more than 1.3 unless by average they are not speaking about the median. In this context, very doubtful.
Rickshmitt | 9 hours ago
Thats insane. I eat maybe 10 hotdogs a year.
stealingfirst | 9 hours ago
Thats probably even too many
DatBoiii4 | 9 hours ago
If 10 hot dogs a year is wrong, I don’t wanna be right
RunRunRunRunFaster | 6 hours ago
Was in a dive bar last week .... all beef dog with onions and relish .... four bucks!
Yea, it isn't Costco, but damned if it doesn't go great with a cheap beer.
erabera | 6 hours ago
I was about to say I don't eat hot dogs and you reminded me. I love the Costco hot dogs and get them a few times a year.
stealingfirst | 9 hours ago
Amen brother
Naive-Home-9068 | 8 hours ago
What if being "right" gives you colon cancer?
DatBoiii4 | 8 hours ago
You could tell me that hot dogs, bacon, beer, being out in the sun, and grilling/smoking food all give you cancer. Which is all true, but we moderate and enjoy those things anyway because life is meant to be enjoyed
Rickshmitt | 8 hours ago
Exactly. Were all going to die. If 10 hotdogs a year and the sun kills me then oh well, guess my body wasnt strong enough to handle such little abuse
BreadKnifeSeppuku | 6 hours ago
If ten hot dogs a year killed you it would be worse than cigarettes considering the average for the country is 70.
Ironically the whole celery replacement for nitrates is just as bad since our bodies can't tell the difference. In case any of our vegan friends felt left out or anyone was unaware
CitizenT777 | 8 hours ago
Don't forget to hold your breath while showering so you don't get cancer from the Chlorine!
Rilse | 5 hours ago
Or the out gassing from the plastic shower curtain
Naive-Home-9068 | 7 hours ago
39% to 43% percent of American will develop cancer
There is a difference between dying in your sleep at 82 and wasting away from metastatic cancer at 63. I watched my father suffer and slowly die from colon cancer.
As a intelligent human being your primary responsibility should be protecting your life and mitagating your risks for suffering and dying a horrible death.
DatBoiii4 | 7 hours ago
Man, even a hot dog every single day of your life only elevates your colorectal cancer risk from 45/1000 to 53/1000. The number is 18% relative risk increase if you eat 50g of processed meat daily. Which sounds alarming until you convert it to absolute terms.
The takeaway here is moderation. Don't drink every day, don't eat processed meat for every meal.
There are people who will do everything right and still get a miserable draw at some point in their lives. There are people who do nothing right and live a long time.
If not eating hot dogs makes you feel better then by all means don't eat them. But I will take the occasional hot dog/prosciutto/ground beef.
Sorry to hear about your dad. 63 is too early.
Congenital0ptimist | 7 hours ago
You're failing at relative risk evaluation here.
You're better off securing your furniture so it won't fall on you. Or taking public trans instead of driving. Or getting a companion pet. Or just walking an extra mile a week. Or selling your cheap synthetic couch/mattress & getting something healthy. Seeing the dentist more often. The list of more effective ways to protect your health is endless. So straying from it is never efficient.
Going from 20-30 hotdogs per year to zero is statistically insignificant.
Naive-Home-9068 | 6 hours ago
Why not do all those things and stop eating hot dogs. Wouldn't that be the reasonable intelligent thing to to do?
Honestly I've always thought hot dogs were kind of mid anyway. It was easy to give up the cancer dogs.
Congenital0ptimist | 5 hours ago
Yeah you could. Sure.
According to Gemini (🤷♂️) it takes approx 1 hotdog per day over a lifetime to raise your risk 18%. The baseline risk is 5%. So your new total risk for colon cancer based on your daily hotdog habit skyrockets from 5% to... 5.9%.
Now you list all the daily things in your life with a similar risk/effort/reward profile like touching receipt papers, 4 minutes of Sun UV, vapors from cleaning product & gas stations & traffic & poor air quality, 3 minutes less exercise, the aluminum in your antiperspirant, on and on and on.
Which ones should you pick to worry about? It'll drive you nuts. Can't just do them all.
Then we could start listing all the things with the same risk/effort/reward profile as just 2 hotdogs per month. That list would be almost everything we do. Cheese would be on that list. But mosquito bites wouldn't.. they're too risky for either list.
We should all cut back on all that stuff. And nobody without a psychiatrist should be eating hotdogs daily. But 2 per month is just a waste of energy to worry about.
shootamcg | 8 hours ago
Ten hot dogs a year won’t give you cancer, c’mon man.
Elizabeth-WildFox886 | 8 hours ago
It is, there’s a reason hot dogs are not popular in most of the world. They taste like absolute shit and are made from even worse
djfl | 4 hours ago
You must not have a Costco where you live.
Baboop | 5 hours ago
I’ve had 10 hotdogs today and it’s not even noon yet!
Altruistic_Ask229 | 7 hours ago
I can't remember the last time I've eaten a hot dog, y'all need to take better care of yourselves.
SolScorpii | 7 hours ago
Don't tell me what to do. Social security is almost insolvent. Medicare is being dismantled. All our safety nets are being destroyed. Current commerce secutary is planning on building "forever factories"
>Lutnick: “It’s time to train people not to do the jobs of the past, but to do the great jobs of the future. This is the new model where you work in these kinds of plants for the rest of your life, your kids work here, and your grandkids work here."
You want to be unjamming the conveyor belt at 90 while your grandchild gets seniority over you that's great for you, all in the family or whatever, but the current world trajectory shows me to smoke em if you got em. And I'll take a hot link today.
diablosinmusica | 8 hours ago
Probably yeah. Poverty increases the chances of all kinds of diseases.
True-Past-5904 | 6 hours ago
It's not just poverty but also lower levels of education. These factors can be expected to increase most causes of morbidity and mortality including violence (and not only for ethnic minority groups of course).
ParadoxicallyZeno | 7 hours ago
according to the National Cancer Institute, West Virginia has roughly a 12% higher cancer rate, 21% higher colorectal cancer rate (associated with high consumption of processed meat), and 29% higher colorectal cancer mortality than the US overall
edit to add: they also have a 20% higher rate of stomach cancer (similarly associated with processed meat) and a 59% higher rate of stomach cancer mortality than the rest of the US
plus 32% higher esophageal cancer rate (another one connected to processed meats) and 43% higher esophageal cancer mortality
TLDR yes
misfitofscience76 | 6 hours ago
That’s also the alcohol consumption accounting for such grim statistics
ParadoxicallyZeno | 5 hours ago
fo sho, there’s a lot going on there (still, hot dogs every day probably isn’t helping)
xnmyl | 5 hours ago
West Virginia is heavily polluted frok many sources, in addition to a large portion of the population working in the mines. Hard to nail down how much each cause has contributed
ParadoxicallyZeno | 4 hours ago
as i said to another commenter who mentioned alcohol consumption: fo sho, there’s a lot going on there (still, hot dogs every day probably isn’t helping)
Alextricity | 7 hours ago
Joey Chestnut’s doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
need_some_answer | 7 hours ago
You’re forgetting about “hot dog George” who eats 7,000 hot dogs per month and skews the results.
xnmyl | 6 hours ago
Average life expectancy in WV is 74.5 years, compared to 80.7 in NY
I'm sure at least part of that is higher cancer rates (although hot dogs are probably the least of their concerns)
FireAsquared | 5 hours ago
West Virginia is one of the highest states for cancer burden. I believe they have ~500 cases per 100k people which is something like 10-15% above the national average.
So yes, tons more cancer compared to other states
NarrMaster | 5 hours ago
"Frankfurters Cletus, who lives in a holler and eats 848,913,052 hot dogs per day, is an outlier and should not have been counted."
extra-medium | 8 hours ago
Eeew wtf
neloish | 6 hours ago
Fun fact West Virginia has a higher GDP then Great Britain, which is why they have to eat bean in toast vs hotdogs.
AverageFoxNewsViewer | 6 hours ago
West Virginia GDP: $83.17 billion
Great Britain GDP: $4.26 trillion
That's why GB can afford education and people from West Virginia can afford fentanyl.
xnmyl | 5 hours ago
The statistic they were told by conservative media is that West Virginia has a higher GDP per capita, which is technically true
West Virginia does have a high GDP per capita due to it's 3 largest sectors: Government spending, healthcare, and welfare. Mining, the largest productive sector, doesn't even Crack the top 3
West Virginia is literally a welfare state. The residents refuse to train to do work other than mining, so they end up on welfare as mines close
AverageFoxNewsViewer | 5 hours ago
West Virgina GDP per capita: $47,100 per person
Great Britain GDP per capita: $61,056 per person
xnmyl | 5 hours ago
UK GDP is ~50x West Virginia's
This is what happens when you blindly parrot statistics without understanding them. You embarrass yourself by saying something wildly inaccurate
Stop listening to biased sources without verifying anything. A tiny bit of research would have helped you understand and contextualize the cherry picked stat you were fed
MisterSanitation | 9 hours ago
We can’t get Americans to realize their government stopped following orders, hotdogs are like 45th on the list of things Americans need to learn before the world catches fire.
elegylegacy | 8 hours ago
The world is already on fire
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Sir, a second hotdog has hit the grill.
conventionalWisdumb | 7 hours ago
That’s the first thing on the list.
MisterSanitation | 6 hours ago
These are fires caused by the United States in a lot of ways, I’m saying the U.S. itself will start to burn, that’s when the heat really hits
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
Only literally. Oh no wait, also metaphorically.
quillseek | 6 hours ago
My kid is so unbelievably picky but will eat hot dogs. He eats a couple a week usually, interspersed between peanut butter sandwiches, mozzarella quesadillas, and plain buttered noodles. Am I a terrible parent? Probably. Am I very stressed about his nutrition? Yes. Am I relieved he will at least get some occasional protein? Also yes. 😩
MisterSanitation | 6 hours ago
Nah you’re ok. I’m a parent too and it is so hard when I was raised on “meat in a can”. You are doing what we are too, real food as much as possible and honesty when they are old enough to make better decisions. It’s all we can do in a world where companies are selling death to our kids via advertisement crafted to convince them.
quillseek | 6 hours ago
I realize there are worse problems to deal with, but we grew up poor and had to eat whatever, and thankfully I liked vegetables so eating just wasn't that hard, so I never realized how hard having a picky eater can be.
I never imagined that I would have a picky kid, and I definitely was judgemental towards parents who (now I realize) were struggling big time with getting their kids to eat.
It seems like it shouldn't be that hard to feed your kids, and then you get one who literally will just go hungry day after day if you try to force "you're having what we're having" every day, and you literally see how skinny they are and the part of you that biologically needs your child to eat is just freaking out all the time, and so you let them eat the hot dogs and butter and white pasta and pray that the long term effects will be less bad than childhood malnutrition.
It's awful.
MisterSanitation | 6 hours ago
I’d echo all of that. Even with no peer pressure it is hard so my 3 year old now will sometimes eat our healthy dinners but yeah sometimes just won’t. I am trying to help solve this by teaching him to not trust any commercials or advertisements. He boos them if he sees them on any app (like I taught him) because I don’t want him to think corporations care about him like my parents assumed they did (if it’s on a store shelf it’s safe right?).
But peer pressure is gonna be a whole other deal when I have to be like “yeah well Todd’s parents would let him drink roundup so I don’t care what they say” lol.
Hang in there mom (assumption sorry if I’m wrong), we’re gonna get these kids through this gauntlet of awful marketing, preservatives, and backwards culture. If they get some Nitrates along the way we can ask forgiveness later, but for now we have to survive and as I say to my kid sometimes in frustration “you HAVE to eat! If you don’t I can’t keep you!” I think I need to retire that one before I scar the poor boy 😅
quillseek | 6 hours ago
Thanks for sharing your experiences too. ♥️
I laughed about booing the ads, that's so relatable - though instead of booing them, we go, "ewww, an ad." Recently I showed my son how a really cool game ad was dishonest when he begged for the game anyway and I let him download it, and of course it sucked. It is sad, seeing their sweet little hearts realize that some things in life and tricky and dishonest on purpose.
Good luck to you too. When our son was 2 he would eat anything, and it just dropped off from there. I hope that that doesn't end up being your experience, and that instead, your kid will keep eating more and more of those healthy dinners. And if not - yeah. We do the best we can with what we can.
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
You could try giving him beyond sausage instead. They taste good grilled and are way healthier than hotdogs.
quillseek | 6 hours ago
Oh that's a good idea. Thanks.
EveryAccount7729 | 5 hours ago
what kind of hotdogs are you getting though? you can get all types
there are definitely hotdogs with fewer nitrates
quillseek | 5 hours ago
We buy whatever is reasonably priced. Not Bar S 🤮 but often Ballpark and sometimes Hebrew National (expensive though). Any recommendations?
EveryAccount7729 | 5 hours ago
Try to see if they will eat Turkey dogs. Its an option to sneak in some healthier protein if they are picky but accept meats in hot dog form!
then just buy ground turkey and tell them its ground up hot dogs and see if they accept that leap in logic =D
quillseek | 4 hours ago
Good idea! Though sadly texture is a huge issue so ground turkey is a hard no 😩
EveryAccount7729 | 4 hours ago
Tofu has texture a lot like hot dog sometimes maybe try Tofu
quillseek | 4 hours ago
I love tofu, but he won't eat it 💔
aucme | 7 hours ago
But when the fire is roaring, I’m cooking hot dogs.
MisterSanitation | 6 hours ago
God damn right
YanCoffee | 3 hours ago
Weenie on a stick is fiiiiiiire
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
It's good know we'll all die from a nuclear war or a holocaust long before the hotdogs give us cancer.
MisterSanitation | 6 hours ago
I literally daydream about nonexistence and feel calm.
Edit: oh that’s sweet more daily calls for me to stop-existing-myself, thanks Reddit!
No-One2123 | 4 hours ago
The massive increase in colon cancer in Gen X and Millennials compared to older generations is directly linked to an increase in nitrite consumption which is commonly used as preservative in processed meats including hotdogs, so the general lack of understanding of hotdogs is literally killing us.
MisterSanitation | 4 hours ago
Get in line behind round up, air quality, water well poisoning, and bullets killing our kids more than anything else.
The free market has given us SO MANY options on how to die, you don’t have to choose just 1!
I need to sell coffins…
Intelligent_Type_626 | 9 hours ago
Americans are intentionally in the dark about the health dangers of the chemicals in our food and other products. The general guidance for manufacturers is do what you want until you get caught.
qui-bong-trim | 2 hours ago
Traveled abroad extensively a few years ago. Every country you go to outside of the U.S., the same products you get here are different. Different colors, different textures, different ingredients. This is because the U.S. allows all the crap in your food that other countries banned years ago due to being TOXIC. People who think the U.S. is the greatest country in the world have simply never stepped foot in a different country.
curiouswizard | 2 hours ago
but they always say they've been to like 12 countries and worked in other countries and even lived overseas
(willing to bet they just hung out at resorts and/or paid attention to nothing the whole time)
babylushyy | 6 hours ago
It's the classic 'reactive regulatory model' vs 'precautionary principle.' We wait until the class-action lawsuit happens before the FDA even considers taking a look
djfl | 4 hours ago
Ya, but for how much longer do you trust the legal system to deal with this, and not just do what Trump says? How much longer do you expect that our institutions will continue properly checking and testing our food?
This stuff should be getting better over time, or at least it could. I have little faith it will though.
GoodPear8481 | 3 hours ago
>dangers of the chemicals in our food and other products
Every food and every product we buy is made up entirely of chemicals lol
SwampFungalPod_ | 2 hours ago
Yes yes why engage with the actual point when you can choose pedentry?
GoodPear8481 | 2 hours ago
It's not pedantry. All food is chemicals. So if you're going to say that "chemicals in the food" are a problem then you're going to have explain what you're actually talking about.
SwampFungalPod_ | an hour ago
Yes specificity is always preferable but it's not exactly massive mental lifting to understand that they are probably talking about known toxins and manufacturing processes that cause the foods to be unhealthy.
GoodPear8481 | an hour ago
"Chemicals", "toxins" and "unhealthy" are all ill defined words that people with zero knowledge of chemistry use without knowing what they mean. That's my entire point.
theycallhimthestug | 2 hours ago
Surely you're aware that some chemicals are more dangerous, or worse for you in general than others. Considering the state of the education system in the US though it's entirely possible you may not, given that is the entire point of the article everyone is commenting on.
GoodPear8481 | 2 hours ago
The people who talk about "chemicals in the food" don't seem to be aware of that. In fact they seem to lack basic knowledge of chemistry in general.
rrkrabernathy | 9 hours ago
Isn’t this a case of the dose makes the poison?
AlwaysUpvotesScience | 9 hours ago
Yes, but the dose is actually pretty low.
BadahBingBadahBoom | 8 hours ago
Yeah evidence indicates as little as 50g (<2 oz) of processed meat a day or 350g (12 oz) a week is bad (significantly increases risk of colorectal cancer).
If you're consuming the typical American diet that's very common, and many Americans also eat a lot more than that.
I think the problem is everyone agrees with the whole 'everything in moderation', but few realise that moderation is actually way lower than they think.
AlwaysUpvotesScience | 8 hours ago
A lot of people don't even understand what the definition of processed meat is.
fighterpilottim | 7 hours ago
I admit it: I don’t.
Is my local deli’s gourmet sandwiches processed meat? What about Burger King, and why is BK different from my home made patties?
Sure, I get that hot dogs are. But there’s a lot of stuff in between hot dog and chateaubriand cut.
AlwaysUpvotesScience | 6 hours ago
deli meats are processed, all of them. Fast food burgers are generally 100% ground beef and not considered processed. Grinding is not processing.
liartellinglies | 5 hours ago
Roast beef isn’t as bad because it’s usually whole muscle, you’re just getting preservatives. If you can get store roasted then it isn’t processed at all.
darkfuryelf | 17 minutes ago
Grinding meat is objectively processing it.
pagerussell | 4 hours ago
It includes anything smoked, salted, or cured. Which is a really broad definition and, like everything around the word processed or natural, I have a lot of skepticism.
I am sure there are offending items in there, and I am also sure the words are so broad they are not useful.
I am also not yet convinced the science has caught a causal mechanism, rather than a correlation. For example, bacon is a processed meat. I rather suspect the people that eat enough bacon to get cancer from it have significant other comorbidities.
Untangling whether the bacon specifically caused billy bob to get cancer or if it was being 150 pounds overweight and not exercising for 4 decades is....not exactly conclusive science just yet.
sierraangel | 2 hours ago
I have bacon multiple times a week, but I’m also on the low end of my healthy BMI range, and I workout 3-5 days a week. Clearly, bacon may have chemicals that are bad for you, but it’s not making people overweight on its own.
liptongtea | 2 hours ago
The problem is it’s really hard to determine what that threshold is. Is Uncured Bacon processed? Is meat you smoke yourself?
Prudent_Kiwi_2761 | 6 hours ago
A chicken leg is not processed, a pork cutlet is not processed, thank you for coming to my ted talk
Flashy-Cranberry-999 | 8 hours ago
Most people don't even understand the size of a serving /portion control.
sweatboxy | 6 hours ago
I always wondered if I was eating enough vegetables, then I checked serving sizes. I’ve been eating 3 or 4 servings at a time. Serving sizes are small!
Vast-Website | an hour ago
I don't think that's the problem.
If you bring up the whole "processed meat causes cancer" thing on reddit there'll usually be some sort of deflection or dismissal of it. It's a deliberate ignorance not a simple oh I didn't know/misinterpreted ignorance. They love their hot dogs and bacon and don't want to hear it.
And yea that's just on reddit, but Americans on reddit are more liberal and less anti-science than the average so the average response is probably even more dismissive.
Jack-of-Hearts-7 | 6 hours ago
Exactly. People freak out about minor carcinogenic content, but still happily chug alcohol and chainsmoke.
RevoltYesterday | 8 hours ago
Something to do with nitrates or is that been dealt with?
CharityGlittering385 | 9 hours ago
I think Swedish people eat more hot dogs than Americans. Not joking, if you’ve been there, you know.
Kirk-Joestar | 4 hours ago
If true, I’m beyond disappointed. German brauts are right there
CharityGlittering385 | 3 hours ago
I’m sure Germans eat plenty of brauts but Swedes eat the typical American style hot dogs, not brauts or sausages.
BillyRubenJoeBob | 3 hours ago
Germany is the champion of processed meats
DropTheBeatAndTheBas | 4 hours ago
yea and donna meat in europe is super popular, its not rven the middle eastern full cuts of lamb its mechanically reconstructed , ive had quite a few arguments about why thats the lowest of the low form of a cut of meat, its actually normalised now that its accepted as real meat
exoticpandasex | 4 hours ago
I assume it’s the manufacturing process and chemicals that are the primary risk factors
DatBoiii4 | 9 hours ago
Hot dogs are so good though 😩
lancebowski | 9 hours ago
It's the spices and seasonings. Put a vegan dog between a sourdough bun with mustard and onions, then TELL me you have a significantly different sensory experience than doing the same with a mix of animal blood vessels, mechanically separated trimmings, rectums, etc..
oxenmeat | 9 hours ago
Rectum? Damn near killed ‘im.
HungryFinance8436 | 8 hours ago
Dude you really could've pivoted towards "Eat a vegan one and it'll be about the same with no cancer risk" and that would've landed more.
But you choose to go into the more gritty aspects people willfully ignore? Yeah that's not gonna do you any favor.
Ltrain86 | 8 hours ago
But also totally untrue. I've tried so many veggie/vegan hotdogs and they're all terrible.
HungryFinance8436 | 8 hours ago
🤷 in thinking more the impossible corndog and both beyond/impossible sausage more than hot dogs tbh. Sausage carries the same risks
I guess there really isn't a good 1/1 hot dog.
taylor__spliff | 6 hours ago
Yeah I don’t understand why there aren’t good vegan hot dogs. They all are missing that snap/bite to them, but the beyond sausages solve that problem…so why no hot dog still?
That said, cancer risk doesn’t seem much lower for beyond sausage. I even made the carrot dogs once (which were actually amazing and I HATE carrots) but you have to soak them in liquid smoke overnight, so not even carrot dog is without risk.
HungryFinance8436 | 6 hours ago
Iirc The cancer risk comes largely from nitrates, which aren't really in the beyond/impossible products.
oxenmeat | 4 hours ago
Impossible actually does include cultured celery powder, which is nitrates/nitrites.
But the colorectal cancer risk is attributed to the interaction between nitrites and animal proteins specifically.
So same risk with “uncured” meat dogs (which use celery instead of curing salts, but that’s just marketing) but not the same with vegan dogs.
But I say just eat the hot dogs. Who wants to live forever. Certainly not the pigs whose assholes I am eating.
No-Following-7037 | 3 hours ago
Many of them taste about the same to me. It is all just protein and fat mush at the end of the day, right?
Naive-Home-9068 | 8 hours ago
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
lancebowski | 8 hours ago
It's the "gritty" aspects that people shouldn't be ignoring. 😉
waaaayupyourbutthole | 4 hours ago
I dunno, man, i hear people actually really enjoy eating assholes these days.
Personally, i don't really understand why someone who eats any other part of an animal would be concerned about eating what's in a hotdog.
NihilismRacoon | 8 hours ago
The texture is definitely different but aside from I think the main problem with most vegan food is that they're trying to appeal to two very different audiences, there's people who want a healthy option and there's people who want a non animal option that tastes good. No one complains that no animal cruelty is involved in Oreos or french fries because they taste good even if they're terribly unhealthy.
lancebowski | 8 hours ago
Whenever there's a choice between lower risk and taste, I always choose the former.
For me, condiments and spices largely override texture and taste (of protein source) considerations. That wasn't instantaneous; arrived there after ~5 years.
Hippocrates is out here catching strays... 😜
NihilismRacoon | 7 hours ago
All the more power to ya friend, I hope all us picky meat eaters reach a swift demise so a better future can be paved
Der_Kegelhammer | 9 hours ago
The ignorant are always the loudest.
ArchStanton75 | 8 hours ago
You’ll never win Americans over to vegetarian with meat substitutes because the meat option always tastes better. I’ve incorporated more vegetarian options for my meals by embracing food from other cultures that already have vegetables as the star. Indian, Thai, and Japanese cuisines offer dishes that are technically vegetarian but are also so delicious I don’t even think about them. I eat them because of great flavors. I’ve had weeks where I realized I was fully vegetarian without thinking of it.
Kahnza | 8 hours ago
Vegan "meat" is disgusting. The people making these should focus on making good vegan food. Not trying to replicate meat.
Alextricity | 7 hours ago
Lmao. Literally fake news. I’ve been making it for years and when I make “real” v*gan food people just say “NEED MEET AN CHEE”
Kahnza | 7 hours ago
Trollololol
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Ah, yes, because the FDA wouldn’t have a field day about minced rectums.
lancebowski | 7 hours ago
You mean, like they care about cyclospora? 😉
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Talking food labels here, not adventitious pathogens.
lancebowski | 7 hours ago
Woah. I thought you were talking FDA oversight, which would include food and pathogens.
So, any segue into lack of, or compromised FDA oversight, would be verboten, ya? 🙄
"Seacrest, out."
Little_Grimmy_Reap | 8 hours ago
Sourdough bun? 💀
lancebowski | 8 hours ago
Yeah, sourdough is really over the top, huh? 🙄
Little_Grimmy_Reap | 8 hours ago
They aren’t even hot dog shaped!! You out here makin shit up lmao
NefariousnessNo484 | 8 hours ago
They literally taste like chemicals
TheNerdGuyVGC | 8 hours ago
Then you’re eating the wrong ones. I’ve never once thought a hot dog tasted like chemicals.
NefariousnessNo484 | 3 hours ago
Well, maybe you're not me. Am I not entitled to my own opinion? Or do I have to say everything you like tastes good to me too?
TheNerdGuyVGC | 3 hours ago
You can think whatever you’d like. I’m just saying that if they taste like chemicals instead of meat, you might have bought some bad dogs. Or maybe you’ve tried every brand on the planet and confirmed they all taste the same to your palate.
2131andBeyond | 2 hours ago
Also, and fun fact, everything is chemicals lmao
Water is chemical
TheNerdGuyVGC | 2 hours ago
I mean yes, but it’s clear what they meant lol
2131andBeyond | 2 hours ago
Sure, but it’s become such a misleading buzzword. A lot of “chemicals” are not harmful to people. People just like to complain that ingredient lists include words they don’t know without actually discovering that those things aren’t always toxic like they assume.
It’s been rough for years in the world of nutrition because food scientists for companies are coming up with ways to increase value of products, and it’s not always toxic like people assume, but because chemical names are unknown, people just complain and follow TikTok informers that lie in order to sling their own random products.
TheNerdGuyVGC | 2 hours ago
Preaching to the choir. I’m a scientist myself, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped while out in the field and had to answer questions about these buzzwords they hear on the news or on Facebook. Most people aren’t particularly media literate, let alone scientifically literate enough to understand that these sound bites they hear are taken out of context or sometimes just purposefully misleading.
With that said, we’re talking about a chemical taste and not the chemicals themselves, and I think everyone can understand what we mean by something having a chemical taste. Even if that could technically refer to any taste imaginable, since everything is a chemical.
Kuriente | 4 hours ago
You lose people by pretending that taste is a rational choice. No one chooses what tastes good to them. You eat a food and find out if you like it. People get bothered enough when told that their favorite foods are harmful to them, but then also insisting that their taste preferences are somehow wrong is a bridge too far for nearly everyone.
NefariousnessNo484 | 3 hours ago
Ok well why do you assume I have the same taste as you do then? To me it literally tastes like chemicals and then I get downvoted to hell for simply having taste buds that better reflect reality.
Kuriente | 2 hours ago
>why do you assume I have the same taste as you do then
I assumed no such thing. When did I say that?
Taste is subjective and we all have unique preferences. As such, no preference is objectively wrong.
But also, what does "chemicals" mean in terms of flavor? Define the taste of "chemicals". Is sodium a "chemical"? Sucrose? Dihydrogen monoxide? From a chemistry standpoint, literally everything you ever ingest is made of chemicals.
EnvironmentalCare900 | 8 hours ago
Cancer the risk is cancer.
Processed meat, which include hotdog and deli meats are classified by the WHO as a class one carcinogen.
That is in the same class as asbestos, plutonium, and tobacco.
Class one carcinogens are substances known to cause cancer.
But yeah, look at me weird when I say that I choose not to give it to my kids…
Goleeb | 7 hours ago
The risks are not the same though keep that in mind. Cigarettes increases your risk of lung cancer 1500% - 3000%. A hotdog a day increases your risk of colon cancer by 20%. Your risk goes from 5% to 6%.
The WHO is sure all these things cause cancer. But they don't all have the same level of health risks. Some are way more dangerous than others.
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
If you're comparing 1 hot dog a day, you should also specify the number of cigarettes. For both it matters how much. And remember, it's not just hot dogs, it's all processed meat. So daily consumption for many people is more than 1.
whatidoidobc | 8 hours ago
Strokes are also a risk with hotdogs.
14X8000m | 7 hours ago
Anything cardiovascular really.
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
Let's not forget diabetes
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Reading comprehension is hard, apparently, because it’s a known fact that the dose makes the poison.
Agitated_Celery_729 | 7 hours ago
The people of WV eat more than 1 hot dog per day on average.
The dose that makes the poison is 50g per day. You want to do the math?
FullConfection3260 | 31 minutes ago
Really depends on the hot dogs, as they do make them uncured, but 50g of what? Pink sludge? 🤨
TraditionalLaw7763 | 6 hours ago
That’s what they think herd immunity is (I can actually hear Uncle Swanson telling me that in his voice “about dem chilleh dawgs wid un-yons”) while they drink water from the tap next to a coal sludge spill.
TraditionalLaw7763 | 6 hours ago
Genuine question… I love not dogs. (Meatless) I actually prefer the taste over a meat one (I know, I’m weird). Is there anything saying they cause cancer too? Is it the preservatives? Or is the cancer risk due to the mechanically separated meat practices/chemicals they use vs. veggie dogs?
taylor__spliff | 6 hours ago
Vegans have lower risks for many cancers compared to omnivores but much higher risk for colorectal cancer. I’d imagine not all veggie dogs are equal, some worse than others, but the average veggie dog probably presents less of a risk than the average meat dog. My understanding is that the curing process is the biggest problem with processed meats (but surely not the only one).
enolaholmes23 | 6 hours ago
Yes. This is important. Hot dogs are literally as dangerous as smoking. It's not one of those random clickbait articles saying everything is cancerous to some degree. This is a serious one.
Better_Goose_431 | 4 hours ago
The cancer risk from hot dogs is tiny compared to the cancer risk of a cigarette. Class 1 just means it’s been proven to cause cancer, not that the risk is inherently the same
Ifch317 | 9 hours ago
Isn't cheese a processed food?
Involution88 | 6 hours ago
Yes. Near everything is processed. Packed frozen vegetables? Processed. Baked flour? Bread is processed food.
Vahuo89 | 9 hours ago
Everything nowadays causes cancer.
Just vary your diet
diablosinmusica | 8 hours ago
Taco Bell, Wendy's, Canes, McDonald's, Burger King, the choices are endless. There is no reason.
Slight-Swordfish-468 | 7 hours ago
A doctor once told me that there are two categories of carcinogens. Things that cause cancer and things that probably cause cancer.
Vahuo89 | 5 hours ago
If you live in California, there's only one category
Naive-Home-9068 | 8 hours ago
That's not true. That's a simplistic falsehood. It's probably not a good idea to eat a known carcinogen.
Agitated_Celery_729 | 7 hours ago
Nice excuse to avoid the very clear science on processed meat cancer risk. Is this the “both sides” of response to cancer research?
zouln | 8 hours ago
Vary your diet is pretty bad advice when 90% of the food available is poison. If it has a nutrition label it’s probably unhealthy.
Bawonga | 7 hours ago
I assume you mean if it doesn't have a nutrition label it must be a fresh or raw food, therefore not processed to be packaged, your point being that whole fresh food is healthier because it does not have any added preservatives, colors, seasoning etc.
zouln | 7 hours ago
At least there is one person out there capable of critical thinking and understands.
International_Neckk | 8 hours ago
So you would rather have food that does not disclose what's in it? And somehow that's the healthier option
zouln | 8 hours ago
No that’s not what I’m saying. Whole fresh fruit and vegetables don’t require a label.
International_Neckk | 7 hours ago
I mean I guess, but people eat a lot more than those things. If you are eating anything that is not just base ingredients then the label is incredibly important for dozens of reasons
zouln | 7 hours ago
Just because they do doesn’t mean they should. They’re also taking multiple medications daily by the time they’re 40 and living shorter than ever.
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Wait until you hear about the dead wasps and sexual fluids in your figs… 🙃
zouln | 6 hours ago
Hey at least it’s natural.
FullConfection3260 | 28 minutes ago
Spoken like the crunchiest mom on TikTok.
MyBedIsOnFire | 8 hours ago
The sun, alcohol and plenty of other things people are regularly exposed to are also carcinogens.
You shouldn't be scarfing down hotdogs, but pretending like eating them is gonna give you colon cancer is nothing more than fear mongering
SwampFungalPod_ | 2 hours ago
Great argument for smoking cigs too
MyBedIsOnFire | 2 hours ago
On average 15% of people who smoke will develop lung cancer
And up to 90% of lung cancer cases are related to smoking.
These are not the same thing at all. Otherwise there would be clear stats showing most cases of colon cancer are from eating processed meats.
The leading cause of colon cancer is genetics and damaged DNA as a result of aging, not hotdogs. Diet does increase risk, but that's not the same as smoking which directly causes cancer.
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
The hotdog is colon shaped… 🤔
PickledLlama | 8 hours ago
Guess I'll die of hot dog and Spam cancer because I ain't gonna stop eating those.
RevoltYesterday | 8 hours ago
They can take my hotdogs but leave my spam alone
manystripes | 4 hours ago
Are people under the impression that hot dogs are actually healthy, or are they just unable to name specifics of why they're bad? That's a huge difference
dollhairsincense | 7 hours ago
Costco has entered the chat
MindyS1719 | 38 minutes ago
Definitely not taking my glizzies away!
legosgrrl | 9 hours ago
Eat the damn hot dog. We're all gonna die anyway.
Naive-Home-9068 | 8 hours ago
Attitudes like this is the reason that 39%-42% of Americans develop cancer.
If you don't care about your own health and longevity that is one thing, but don't spread lies that will cause others to die a horrible and painful death.
legosgrrl | 8 hours ago
Seriously bro. It's a hot dog. During A FASCIST REGIME DISABLING OUR FDA, CDC, PRESIDENCY ETC. Joy is small sometimes.
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Yup, can’t wait to be 90 and still working because there’s nobody left to pay pensions. 🙄
Naive-Home-9068 | 7 hours ago
Being poor isn't as bad as your body slowly rotting away, painfully struggling for each breath, lingering on in pain and fear because your heart is strong while your body is so riddled with metastatic cancer that the doctors can't do anything.
I watched my father die of colon cancer. I remember watching my mother cry at his bedside for months as she watch the love of her life suffering totally unable to help him or ease his pain. It was horrible.
Not eating hot dogs is a small price to pay to avoid that terrible fate. Especially when there are so many other delicious healthy foods to enjoy.
FullConfection3260 | 7 hours ago
Hint, there’s a fuck ton more that can lead to colon cancer besides hot dogs, but it wouldn’t be much of a crusade without the lowest form of bogeyman.
But I am sure your father ate hot dogs by the truckload.
Naive-Home-9068 | 6 hours ago
He smoked cigarettes his whole adult life and drank two to three beers everyday. Every meal included red meat and he ate lots of processed meat like hot dogs and deli meats. He also lived in houses that had popcorn ceilings made from abestos and every meal was cooked in Teflon pans and plastic containers.
We are so surrounded by poisons and carcinogens it's no wonder that 40% of Americans develop cancers in their 60s.
The point is to try to develop habits than reduce your risks of dying a horrible death not to say nothing matters we are all going to die anyway.
And I never been that impressed with hot dogs anyway. It was easy to stop eating them when I learned they were carcinogen.
FullConfection3260 | 35 minutes ago
“My dad lived in the worst possible environment, and couldn’t control his own habits.”
You know you aren’t proving the point you think you’re making, right? Eating a hot dog is not the same risk as smoking a cigarette, and you are clearly looking for a strawman otherwise.
EveryAccount7729 | 5 hours ago
that post is not "spreading lies" you may disagree with its premise but its honest.
Naive-Home-9068 | 4 hours ago
Maybe "lies" was a bit pejorative. More like a corrosive viewpoint that will lead to preventable illness and death.
You are free to pursue a lifestyle of "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die".
Just remember that quote is from the dark ages. A time before scientific undestanding and basic medical lnowledge.
stilettopanda | 5 hours ago
We have a few more clear and present dangers to worry about. The hot dogs can wait.
Spiritual-Neat6478 | 5 hours ago
This is so exaggerated. The widely cited 18% increased risk of colorectal cancer from regularly eating hot dogs is a tricky use of numbers. Basically they found that your lifetime risk of colorectal cancer went up from something like 4% to 4.72% if you ate hot dogs/processed meat regularly, and quantified that as an 18% increase. If people knew the truth they would laugh off these scare tactics.
Let's face it, you know they don't want us to eat meat because it demands more resources than foods like beans. They saw how the fear of cancer dramatically cut down smoking. So now if they don't want you to consume something, they just to try and find a way to tell you that you will get cancer if you enjoy it. Hot dogs are a very popular, cheap form of meat, so the dogs gotta go.
Ziz-bird | 5 hours ago
If you roll dice a lot, loke playing d&d, you find 0.72% on top of 4% is very significant. 4% is 1 of 25. 4.42% is 1 out of 21. So imagine you're in a group of 20 or 24 other people and one of you will get cancer. You really want to be with the group of 20 because or hot dogs? And then add evey other choice of that kind that you make to watch that group shrink and shrink until it's 1 in 10...? Or 1 in 5...? While it's the pork lobby's endless advertising that convinced you that you want hod dogs in the first place, associated it with America and masculinity and created BBQ culture. So yeah, you're 100% right that if people were told the percent, they would laugh it off, which would be a deadly mistake that would kill millions of people... because people are terrible at understanding probability based on numbers. I hope that helps.
Spiritual-Neat6478 | 4 hours ago
Basically by 8% everyone will have cancer.
tideshark | 3 hours ago
What’s my healthy alternatives for hot dogs bc I would happily make a change if there is something close to hot dogs I can use bc hot dogs are delicious, but I do think it’s easily just as much of how I layer them with toppings that make them delicious and not just the dog itself.
Sybertron | an hour ago
Cancer is also a side effect that would carry the same headline for red meat and sunshine. Yet seems those get less clicks these days
fadesteppin | 56 minutes ago
When things in your country have become so unaffordable to the point that people have costco hot dog money and thats it, nobody gives a shit whats in hot dogs. We all know they're not healthy and intentionally don't think about what makes up a hotdog when we eat them bc we know its disgusting.
Same goes for most sandwich meats. The stuff that's the worst for you is usually the cheapest and sandwiches make for easy meals for times you are too exhausted to cook, and/or to pack your kids lunches when kids are notoriously picky.
I am a helluva lot more concerned about the climate crisis that is VERY RAPIDLY looming over us, my country's nosedive into full on fascism, and my rights as a woman being on the line, than whether I'll die from eating too many processed meats. Half the time I'd rather be dead than dealing with the current state of the world on top of my personal problems anyway so 🤷♀️
mavric22 | 8 hours ago
This is wilful ignorance. The information is everywhere.
Mr-Logic101 | 7 hours ago
The sun also causes cancer.
Honestly, just about everything causes cancer in some capacity
TraditionalLaw7763 | 6 hours ago
If it doesn’t… wait… it will! 😆👍🏼
funguyshroom | 9 hours ago
I thought the biggest risk linked to hot dogs is choking on one
Nathan-Stubblefield | 6 hours ago
I thought you meant poodles locked in cars in a parking lot.
Connect-Will2011 | 9 hours ago
You know, a lot of people say to me, "Hey, you travel around all the time, you must not be able to get good foods to eat." But I love hot dogs and you can get a hot dog any place, so it's easy for me to eat, right?
But people still come up, they say, "Oh, don't eat hot dogs. They have really weird things in them, you know, but it doesn't bother me because I love animal lips."
And I guess rat feces is one about my favorite things. I guess I do enjoy it.
- Steve Martin, Comedy Is Not Pretty
Tll6 | 9 hours ago
It’s easy to forget how little fellow Americans know about their food. But we sure have strong stances on things like vaccines and GMOs
WakandaNowAndThen | 7 hours ago
I'm making hot dogs
jungleass98 | 4 hours ago
Ya got a recipe? Or just like store bought?
WakandaNowAndThen | 4 hours ago
I got a guy at the factory actually.
Kuriente | 9 hours ago
And they're delicious. I also drink beer.
Clutches pearls
Hopeful-Artichoke449 | 8 hours ago
Americans love denial almost as much as hot dogs.
Relevant_Grass9586 | 5 hours ago
Had hotdogs last night. They were delicious.
BlackReddition | 8 hours ago
Perhaps it could have just headlined “Americans are in the Dark”. It would explain a lot about the government and economy right now, starting with Trump.
Better_Goose_431 | 4 hours ago
I’m tired of the nerds trying to suck all the joy and happiness out of people’s lives. Let people enjoy their hot dogs
ApprehensiveJuice890 | 3 hours ago
People should be free to enjoy smoking and drinking, just know it will have health consequences in the long term, just like eating hot dogs and sausage.
CliffBoof | 3 hours ago
Calling a hot dog happiness is similar to calling A szzAOo
UseforNoName71 | 8 hours ago
Man , I could really go for a Carrot dog right about now!
Droggles | 8 hours ago
What about hot dog bowls?
Lostmypants69 | 6 hours ago
I've eaten so many dogs
CitizenT777 | 6 hours ago
Dang it, now I want to grab a Costco dog when I go shopping later. You're all responsible for my demise!
skot77 | 4 hours ago
Don't tell Mitt Romney.
bubba1834 | 4 hours ago
& I just went to Coney Saturday for my annual 2 hotdogs and Cyclone ride oops
transitfreedom | 4 hours ago
Well shit
phreakingidi0t | 3 hours ago
people should not call it a protein source. it's 70% fat. youre eating a fat glob.
RedutHatesFreeSpeech | 3 hours ago
Who even gives a shit? I slam kirkland glizzys all week dude. I grill a pack on Saturday and have 2-3 a day. Fucking delicious
smalls3486 | 2 hours ago
I think the important question that needs to be answered here is… what about brats?
ItsmeMr_E | 2 hours ago
Oh fug off. lol
Who has ever eaten hotdogs and thought they were eating something healthy.
Any processed meat product is unhealthy, but they are delicious and usually cheaper than buying a full muscle piece of meat.
echoshatter | 2 hours ago
So half of us don't know, and the other half does, but we still all eating the damn things.
Just eat what you like in moderation folks, you only get one trip. What good is all that salad going to do for you when you're still going to die?
Hot_Major_9806 | 2 hours ago
Have you met the average American? What specific health risks can the average American name for an illegal drug vice a legal food?
oOBlueLillyOo | 2 hours ago
I can’t remember the last time I ate a hot dog. Maybe when my kids were little. They 22 30 29 now
eK-XL | an hour ago
This is exactly what Big Hot Dog wants. When will people wake up?!
LongLiveStaceyKing | an hour ago
This speaks to the problem with a truly free market in that is relies entirely on consumers making informed choices to drive the morality of a given economy.
The ignorance of consumers on the dangers of hot dogs is a great example. Who is supposed to be providing the information that hot dogs are dangerous to eat? We certainly cannot rely on hot dog manufacturers to voluntarily disclose all the dangers of their product.
So how is a consumer in the truly free market even supposed to uncover information about a product in the first place in order to make the kind of informed decision free market capitalists insist should be the only driving force of the economy?
We desperately need independent (read: non-profit driven) governing bodies to keep businesses in line yet those consumer protections are eroding more quickly now than ever before in my lifetime.
zandra47 | an hour ago
That’s crazy considering the repeated amount of info my feed gives me about processed foods and colorectal cancer rates increasing in people younger than 50
pervy_roomba | an hour ago
Question: lots of countries regularly eat processed meats like salami and ham in sandwiches. Are they then facing the same increase in cancer?
Pirate_Candy17 | an hour ago
I knew that they were processed but I didn’t realise they were specifically cited as cancer instigators
myjohnson6969 | 23 minutes ago
Ah why live long? See more wars? See more suffering? See more greed? See environmental disasters increase? Eat a hot dog, take the risk! 🤣
[OP] cindyx7102 | 9 hours ago
"With the Fourth of July coming up, there’s almost certain to be a hidden and dangerous threat lurking in your refrigerator or freezer. I’m talking, of course, about hot dogs.
A new poll this week, commissioned by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), looked at Americans’ attitudes toward hot dogs. More than half the respondents reported eating hot dogs at least once a month, it showed, while nearly 90% were unaware of the specific health problems associated with the food, such as a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. People, particularly kids, should try to limit their consumption of hot dogs and other highly processed meats, doctors with the Physicians Committee say.
“Because children’s bodies and eating habits are still developing, early and frequent exposure to red and processed meats—like hot dogs—can cause lasting harm,” said Stephanie McBurnett, a registered dietician and the nutrition educator for the Physicians Committee, in a statement from the group.
Why are hot dogs bad?
Hot dogs are a prime example of processed meat, or meat that’s been preserved and treated through various methods like smoking, curing, or salting. And sadly, research has consistently linked the regular consumption of these foods to a higher risk of many health issues.
According to the American Cancer Society, both processed and red meat are strongly linked to colorectal cancer; some research has further suggested they can raise the risk of breast, pancreatic, prostate, and stomach cancer. The World Health Organization formally recognizes processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen (the strongest level of certainty). And these foods also seem to increase our chances of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and possibly even dementia.
The average American, however, appears to be in the dark about the above, according to this latest poll, which was conducted last week on behalf of the Physicians Committee by the company Morning Consult. The online poll involved more than 2,200 adults among the general population, according to Morning Consult. People were asked how often they ate hot dogs and whether they were aware of the health risks associated with them.
Overall, 59% of people said they ate hot dogs at least once a month, while roughly a quarter reported eating them at least once a week. Men were more likely to eat them two to three times a week than women (51% to 38%), as were people between 35 and 44 compared to any other age group (52%).
A whopping 40% of respondents said they weren’t aware of any health risks linked to hot dogs, while another 49% said they were aware of health risks in general but couldn’t think of any specific ones; just 11% could list these risks, with the most commonly named being cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, and high cholesterol.
Safer alternatives
Of course, moderation can go a long way toward having a healthier diet. So if you love a good frankfurter, as I do, maybe you can cut back on your consumption, especially if you’re an every-day dogger, as 5% of respondents in this poll reported they were. And not all hope is lost if you love hot dogs but want to stay as health-conscious as possible, McBurnett says. Though vegan or plant-based hot dog meat alternatives also tend to be processed, they’re safer overall if they’re replacing the traditional meat kind.
“On the bright side,” she said, “there are a multitude of healthier hot dog alternatives available these days, from commercially prepared veggie dogs that can be found in most supermarkets, to tasty whole food homemade versions made from marinating carrots in soy sauce, liquid smoke, and spices.”
The Physicians Committee even has its own recipe for those homemade carrot dogs."
Accurate_Koala_4698 | 9 hours ago
>With the Fourth of July coming up
The Fourth of August is coming up
Tll6 | 9 hours ago
It’s just part of the quoted article. The rest of the information is completely valid
Tll6 | 9 hours ago
For some reason I don’t think people who eat hot dogs every day or every week are going to be receptive to plant based hot dogs!
just4browse | 9 hours ago
Really? If anybody asked me a health risk connected with anything, I’d probably immediately guess cancer.
Substantial_Meal_530 | 8 hours ago
I can't name the specifics, but I know hot dogs are bad for me...
MentalDisintegrat1on | 6 hours ago
Does this surprise anyone? They are the left over stuff and highly processed.
krombopulous_chris | an hour ago
Why is “leftover stuff” a bad thing? Organ meat is considered “healthy” by most people and it’s no worse than any other part of the animal that we choose to use.
Also, what is “highly processed”? I get what you’re trying to say I guess but it just bothers me that people use vague terms that don’t really mean much and act like it’s so obvious what they’re saying.
Sauerkraut and fermented food could be classified as processed but they’re great for you. Same with with something like whey protein, frozen veggies, and canned food; it is processed but there is really nothing wrong with it. On the other hand Pork lard can be considered all natural but you shouldn’t just eat a bowl full of it. What is bad about hotdogs is most likely the nitrates and fat content, not that it’s “leftover stuff and highly processed”. That being said, the effect size is incredibly low, yes they say it’s like 18% increase or something like that but the actual risk doesn’t even go up more than a fraction of a percent from baseline risk. So we know nitrates cause cancer, but eat at your own risk because even if you eat them every day it barely changes your chances. If you enjoy a hot dog from time to time, you shouldn’t have to feel shame, guilt, or fear lol
MentalDisintegrat1on | an hour ago
Hot dogs are highly processed food and foods that are highly processed have been linked to cancer as well as harming your gut biome.
Hot dogs are considered ultra processed as in all the crap to make them shelf stable and last.
If you want to gamble on eating terrible food that's been proven to harm you then go right ahead.
Edit
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/01/are-hot-dogs-healthy-bad-for-you
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37087831/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260220-how-ultra-processed-foods-influence-our-gut-microbiome
krombopulous_chris | an hour ago
What is the definition of highly processed and ultra processed? It seems like it changes every time you ask someone. I fully agree with you that minimally processed whole foods are probably best and that if people want to eat “terrible food” it should be at their own discretion, I just dont like the fear-mongering when people can’t give a solid definition of what makes something scary. Totally respect your opinions though and I think we agree on more than we disagree
MentalDisintegrat1on | an hour ago
You can Google this yourself I'm not going to give you a school on healthy eating and diets.
Eating shit makes you unhealthy this isn't some ground breaking news.
coreyjdl | 3 hours ago
No one gives a shit. Quit trying to demonize food.
JefferyTheQuaxly | 8 hours ago
americans in general are just dumber than you would think. especially adults that have been out of school for decades or never went to school. its really hard to overstate how dumb some americans are. millions of people in america live in super rural areas, have next to no communication with the outside world, never went to school never learned anything, have grown up in the same town their great great grandparents grew up in, usually in a super impoverished area. people so out of touch with things they dont know who the president is, how the government functions, literally anything outside of their small bit of life they dont know how to do. these are the people that help us get results like, 15% of americans thinking chocolate milk comes from brown cows or that the sun revolves around the earth. people can be stupid, especially when it comes to their own health, which even smarter americans have trouble keeping up with.
lumpkinater | 7 hours ago
Wow you couldn't be more wrong.
MidnightPrevious4473 | 9 hours ago
Hot dog: Hopital
GrumpySquirrel2016 | 5 hours ago
Americans are ill informed about nutrition due to the number of influencers and amount of disinformation out there. It also doesn't help that students can graduate from (some, not all) med schools with no classes in nutrition (meaning they may also be ill informed).
KingSpork | 6 hours ago
I think we just don’t care. What’s the fucking point. We’ll all be fucking dead or languishing in a prison camp in 10-20 years. Literally does anyone expect a bright future worth living for? Lol
neloish | 6 hours ago
I eat almost only processed or frozen foods, drink diet soda and I am fine. You people worry to much about the small stuff, getting fat is much worse than eating processed foods.
Content_Owl8586 | 6 hours ago
Confidently incorrect
coreyjdl | 3 hours ago
You eat nearly entirely processed food yourself, bud.
Content_Owl8586 | 2 hours ago
I don’t eat processed foods at all bozo
neloish | 6 hours ago
Show me a study were a skinny person who eats processed foods is less healthy than an obese person if I am incorrect.
G0ld3nGr1ff1n | 6 hours ago
The danger is in the fat that collects around the organs, not the fat on the thighs.