It is not surprising to anyone anywhere in the United States to hear that hot dogs are not a healthy food. We know they are little meaty science tubes packed with nitrates that, if you overindulge, will kill you.
An all-new massive study just dropped, further reinforcing this idea, going as far as to suggest that there is no safe amount of processed meat that you should be eating. We shouldn’t be eating this stuff at all, and yet we will continue to, because there’s just some science we all choose to ignore.
Some of us choose the wrong science to ignore: vaccines, climate change, and evolution. Others choose the right science to ignore, like that processed meats should not be eaten ever under any circumstances whatsoever at any point in the entirety of your life.
I don’t think any of us are advocating for a hot dog-a-day kind of life. But the occasional Costco dog, or a couple fistfuls of summertime grilled wieners? Heck yeah, brother. Forget the science, scarf a dog.
Are Hot Dogs Really Bad for You?
Published in Nature Medicine, the study pooled data from over 60 previous studies analyzing the link between diet and major diseases like type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and colorectal cancer. It found that even small, regular doses of hot dogs, bacon, soda, or anything packed with trans fats can nudge you toward disease.
For example, eating just one processed meat product a day, like one measly little hot dog, America’s preferred emulsified meat, is linked to an 11 percent higher risk of diabetes and a seven percent bump in colorectal cancer risk.
Now, you may have noticed a small issue with that. As my editor Caitlin said, “I’m not sure I would call someone who eats a hot dog every day a casual eater of hot dogs.” But, for argument’s sake, if someone were trying to do a Super Size Me with hot dogs, they probably have a bouquet of cancers heading their way.
Multiple-time Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest winner Joey Chestnut must be a walking tumor by this point.
Other scientists not involved in the study who spoke to CNN say that none of this is technically proof that processed meats lead directly to a future where you’re riddled with a variety of meat-induced maladies. But there is a strong enough association that it’s probably wise to put out this warning to the processed meat-eating public.
Of course, they’re not a bunch of scolds. Their goal isn’t to spread fear of the noble hot dog and its processed brethren, but to merely spread the gospel of moderation. Cut back rather than cut out. “The goal shouldn’t be perfection,” a professor of nutrition and food science named Gunter Kuhnle told CNN. “But rather a healthy and sensible dietary pattern that allows room for enjoyment.”
Is There a Safe Amount of Processed Meat You Can Eat?
Even those who suggest that there is no such thing as a safe amount of processed meat to eat are telling you to ignore the science. Not completely. Ignore it a little bit. Ignore it occasionally.
Sometimes let it fully guide your decisions, because that quarter-pound Costco dog is hot off the grill, and if you won’t eat it, then someone else will.
Eat your plants, eat your whole grains, eat your fermented foods that fill your gut with beneficial bacteria, and eat way less of the processed meats that we are increasingly understanding to be essentially meat cigarettes that do to our bowels what tobacco does to our lungs. But do not abandon them just because science says so.
This Fourth of July, and every Fourth of July for the rest of your life, until the processed meat kills you, use one hand to give the processed meat science the finger while using the other to wreck a hot dog. Save the salad for July 5th.
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