Hot dogs. This favorite picnic “meat” is cloaked in mystery. Sure, mystery is great and all, if you’re watching a crime drama or waiting to open Christmas gifts. When it’s something that you’re planning to put in your body… not so much.
Maybe it’s time to really discover the “meat” behind the mystery. As you become aware of what is actually being grilled, slapped on a bun, and slathered with mustard and ketchup, plan on writing off hot dogs forever.
It is estimated that Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs per year! That’s a staggering 70 hot dogs for every person each year. Care to know how these prized picnic foods are made?
First, all the “good stuff” is removed from an animal; the products that can actually be labeled for what they are. These include the steaks, breasts, ribs, tenderloins, and chops.
Once that’s done, there’s a fair amount of the butchered animal left over. Waste not want not, right? Meat processors pretty quickly realized that it just wouldn’t do to waste all those yummy “trimmings.”
On the subject of trimmings, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), writes:
“The raw meat materials used for precooked-cooked products are lower-grade muscle trimmings, fatty tissues, head meat, animal feet, animal skin, blood, liver and other edible slaughter by-products.”
So, these by-products are then churned around, often with by-products from other species, until they no longer resemble anything remotely edible. They becomes something like slaughter soup. The churning continues when water is added to the mix.
At this point, the “meat” looks more like watery dog poop or melting chocolate ice cream. Both images really suit the disgusting liquid-like substance. To add insult to injury, the “meat batter” is then doused with copious amounts of corn syrup. Way to go from bad to worse.
Next up, it’s stuffed into casings. This is a polite word for animal intestine tubes, or artificially produced collagen tubes made from cow skin. Gross.
To achieve that “nice” smoky flavor, the mystery meat is then doused in liquid smoke. To complete the process, the tubes are grouped, packaged, and then shipped out to arrive on the plates of unsuspecting picnic-goers and baseball fans.
Did you want to throw up when you read about the trimmings? Or maybe it was the whole “meat batter” thing? Either way, you can see why it’s a good idea to refrain from eating this popular “meat.”
It is most likely that you won’t want to touch a hot dog with a 10-foot pole after learning what’s really hiding beneath the bun and the (high fructose corn syrup) ketchup. As for us, we’ll definitely pass.
-The Alternative Daily
Sources:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/07/whats-hot-dog-made
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai407e/ai407e13.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/21/hot-dog-disgusting-fast-food_n_5005849.html
http://www.hot-dog.org/culture/hot-dog-fast-facts
