The hot dog is one of America’s most popular foods, with the average person consuming 50 of them per year. Hot dogs are one of the most nutritionally bankrupt foods.
Doctors are recommending that parents stop feeding their kids hot dogs. The hot dog’s gustatory glow took a significant hit in 2009 when the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) issued its landmark report about hot dogs and cancer risk, based on more than 7,000 scientific studies. AICR determined that every 50 gram serving of processed meat you consume daily—for example, just ONE hot dog—raises your risk for colorectal cancer by 21 percent. Despite these health warnings, frankfurters have been unstoppable.
Americans alone consume 155 million hot dogs just on the fourth of July. That is a very discomforting statistic, given the seriously harmful effects hotdogs have on your body. Research has shown that children who consume more than a dozen hot dogs in a month have a 9% increased risk of leukemia. If the father has frequently eaten hot dogs before conceiving, his child has an increased increased risk of cancer. Â if the mother during the pregnancy consumes more than 1 hot dog a week, there is an increased risk that her child will get a brain tumor.
The reason for these severe adverse effects from the consumption of hot dogs lies in nitrite additives, which are added in their production in order to prevent botulism. Yet, during the cooking process, these nitrites get combined with the amines in the meat and create an extremely dangerous cancer-causing compound, known as N-nitroso.
Therefore, if hot dogs are just your favorite food and you cannot completely avoid them, you should definitely limit the portions or use only nitrite-free meats.