FOOD REVOLUTION – The first alarming thing about hot dogs is their sodium content.
A single Oscar Meyer Classic Weiner Hot Dog contains 410 milligrams of sodium, almost a fifth of the daily maximum.
They’re also high in fat, about a third of which is heart-unfriendly saturated fat.
What’s more, hot dogs are also devoid of any dietary fiber, a nutrient crucial for gut health that is in short supply anyway in the standard industrialized diet.
As heavily processed meats, weiners also lack the antioxidants, phytonutrients, and vitamins found in whole foods. The processing methods used to create the final product (like grinding, mixing, and curing hot dogs with chemical additives) strip away nutrients.
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At the expense of nutritional quality, this processing expands shelf life, enhances flavor, and creates a uniform texture.
And if you add a hot dog bun to the picture, things get even worse. There are 126 calories in the average white hot dog bun or roll, which is more than the hot dog itself!
You’ll also get another 222 mg of sodium, which brings the sodium content for a single hot dog with bun up to about 25% of your total sodium for the day (before condiments are added to the mix!).
How Are Hot Dogs Made and What Are They Made from?
They are processed meat, meaning they are made up of the parts of animals left over once the choice cuts are used up.
The ingredients in Oscar Meyer weiners are listed as “mechanically separated” chicken, turkey, etc. But what does that mean exactly?
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Trimmings are the remains of an animal left after cutting up meat products like pork chops and steaks.
That includes animal parts such as snouts, organs, intestines, and skeletal muscle. They are turned into ground meat in industrial grinders and then combined with processed chicken trimmings …