Hot Dogs May Cause Genetic Mutations

You have got to be kidding me. I saw this story twice, once on the Fox News website and now on the Newsmax website. Evidently right now they’re just coming up with conjectures based on little experiments with their chemistry kits; but, they do plan to step it up and do the ultimate in research experimentation---feed bits of hot dogs to lab rats and see if they develop colorectal cancer.

In my mind, scientific research on food has gone way past the point of absurdity, and I don’t trust any thing that these researchers are saying anymore. Just take some of the basic staples of the average diet---eggs and milk---it seems to me that every few years the recommendations and health benefits/detriments change depending on which way the wind blows. I know it’s the skeptic in me, but I believe these researchers are way more interested in getting their names in a journal, and like almost every other issue out there today, it’s about the money. I read recently of a study that showed we need to be eating more of a certain type of food, one of the best being almonds---the study was funded by the Almond Growers Association.

Health and nutrition are important, I understand that, but it is just one area that affects quality of life, and isn’t necessarily an indicator of longevity. Linda McCartney was an outspoken and rabid vegetarian, who died in her mid-50’s. My grandfather was married for over 50 years to my grandmother, who would have made it onto PETA’s most wanted list. She cooked family dinners that would have fed the entire Minnesota Viking’s squad, including the cheerleaders. An evening snack for grandpa was a huge chunk of salami, maybe followed up with eating leftover kielbasa (polish sausage). He made it to his mid-70’s.

My guess is that when the research is done, they probably will show that hot dogs contain some type of chemical that may be harmful, if you eat like 10,000 of them in a one week period. The only guy who maybe should be worried about this is Kobayashi, the hot dog eating champion. He ate like 54 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. There are a lot of people out there who only eat hot dogs during special events, like picnics or at the ballpark.

I think in order to keep the research as true as possible, they should make sure they test different control groups. Feed hot dogs to a group in the lab for sure; but, they should also take a group of lab rats out to the ball park and feed it to them while watching the Twins play the White Sox. I think watching a good ball game would counteract any of the negative results of eating a ballpark frank.