Keep Your Nose Out of Our Buns!

Recently a billboard was put up on I-75 south of Turner Field, the home of the Atlanta Braves. The billboard depicted a pack of hot dogs as a pack of cigarettes complete with a cancer warning label. The billboard was commissioned by the Cancer Project which is a non-profit consortium of doctors, nutritionists, and researchers who believe processed meats are carcinogens and should come with a warning label like cigarettes.

“Like cigarettes, hot dogs should come with a warning label that helps baseball fans and other consumers understand the health risk,” Cancer Project dietitian Joseph Gonzales said in a statement.

The group wants warning labels put on hot dog stands at Turner Field.

Many hot dogs contain nitrates and nitrites. These products will actually tell you on the label. Nitrates are basically non-toxic and occur naturally in nature. When ingested the nitrates are converted to nitrites which in high enough doses can be toxic, mostly in infants. If parents are feeding infants hot dogs I think there are bigger problems to deal with. Infants are generally classified as 3 months to 12 months.

In healthy adults the nitrites are eliminated. The amount one would have to ingest to actually cause a health risk is far beyond what a hot dog or two would amount to. The FDA has set limits on the amount that is allowed in foods such as smoked salmon or hot dogs. The limit by the FDA has been set at 200 PARTS PER MILLION. These chemicals don't build up in the body. They are eliminated as part of natural digestion, so it's not like a hot dog consumed at the ball park when you are 5 is going to cause you to die of cancer 70 years later!

There is no scientific study that shows a definite link between nitrites and cancer. This statement from Argonne National Laboratory is quite telling: "While these compounds are carcinogenic in test animals, evidence is inconclusive regarding their potential to cause cancer (such as stomach cancer) in humans." My question and one that I'm sure any inquisitive consumer would want to know about these studies is... How many nitrites were pumped into these test animals? Surely it wasn't a hot dog or two over a period of weeks!

Another very relevant question is, exactly who is the Cancer Project and what do they stand for? Everyone has an angle and everyone is looking for something. It turns out the Cancer Project is a vegan advocacy group as reported by the LA Times:

"Described by the Los Angeles Times (LAT) as a vegan advocacy group, Cancer Project, wants food companies like Oscar Mayer and Hebrew National, big names in the hot dog world, to put labels on their hot dogs warning that eating this product and other processed meats "increases the risk of cancer".".

Furthermore, Cancer Project states: "62 per cent of Americans eat some kind of processed pork, says Cancer Project, adding that in 2006, 1.5 billion pounds of hot dogs were consumed in the US, at an average of 32 pounds a year per person."

I don't know about you, but I certainly don't eat 32 pounds of hot dogs per year! I didn't eat that many hot dogs when I was in college -- you know the bright pink ones that you could pick up for a buck a pack at the neighborhood quick stop?

The bottom line is this: Eat everything in moderation and don't have a knee jerk reaction to anything you read -- including this I guess! The ultimate goal of a vegan advocacy group such as the Cancer Project, is to hide behind a legitimate and frightening sounding title to advance their own agenda. In this case it is to eliminate meat products from the American diet. It took four articles before I found out what the Cancer Project is all about. I remember reading an article when I was a kid that said scientists believed that saliva caused cancer. I was afraid to swallow my own spit for a year! Needless to say that was false...

If you are worried about these additives, there are certainly alternative hot dogs that are perfectly good and don't contain nitrites. Give bison dogs a shot! Maverick Ranch makes a very good product that is completely organic and lower in fat than most products on the market. The fat, by the way, is what many physicians believe actually leads to various cancers.

Enjoy the occasional hot dog and enjoy life!