A Hot Dog a Day Could Send You to an Early Grave

A national medical group considers hot dogs as bad as cigarettes, since one 50-gram serving of processed meat a day highly increases the risk of colorectal cancer.

Traditional hot dogs are made from pork trimmings, the pieces left over after chops, bacon and ham has been cut away along with chicken or turkey.

The meat is ground into a paste and mixed with water, preservatives, flavoring and colors, they contain nitrites which are used as preservatives, primarily to combat botulism. During the cooking process, nitrites combine with amines naturally present in meat to form carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds. It is also suspected that nitrites can combine with amines in the human stomach to form N-nitroso compounds. These compounds are known carcinogens and have been associated with cancer of the oral cavity, urinary bladder, esophagus, stomach and brain.

Think twice the next time you give a hot dog to your kids, its an easy fast fix for a hungry family, but they might have to deal with the consequences later, remember… we are what we eat.