Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Hot Dogs and Processed Meats as Bad as Cigarettes

Hot Dogs and Processed Meats as Bad as Cigarettes. Natural Society

Are you a smoker? How about a hot dog eater? According to a national medical group, hot dogs are just as detrimental as cigarettes to your health. The D.C. -based alternati
ve health group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ran a $2,750 billboard that read “Warning: Hot dogs can wreck your health.” But it’s true; healthy hot dogs may not exist, along with healthy processed meat.

That $2,750 message was aiming to warn people about the health risks of eating processed meats. This includes but is not limited to hot dogs, deli meats, ham, sausage, bacon, and pepperoni—all foods found in excess in everyday American fare, and something like a requirement at any Speedway event.

“A hot dog a day could send you to an early grave,” says dietitian Susan Levin, nutrition education director for the committee. The causes of death include colorectal and pancreatic cancer thanks to the chemical additives and genetically modified ingredients—not, as commonly believed, the meat itself.

Let’s take a brief look at the Oscar Meyer hot dog, the ingredients of which include (not limited to) mechanically separated various meats, corn syrup, and sodium nitrite. Mechanically separated meat is a paste that includes the spinal cords of animals—which is where, incidentally, BSE or Mad Cow Disease tends to lurk. Meanwhile, corn syrup in conventional foods is almost always genetically modified and is a prime suspect in the American obesity epidemic, and sodium nitrite has been associated with a 67 percent raised risk of pancreatic cancer.

As with cigarettes, it’s not the meat itself but the chemical additives—like nitrates—in processed meat that make them so harmful. (That is, unless, the animals are fed genetically modified corn in horrid conditions typical of factory farms, in which case the meat itself becomes toxic.) Pasture-raised meats are not as toxic as the mainstream media often suggests.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/healthy-hot-dogs-hot-dogs-and-processed-meats-as-bad-as-cigarettes/#ixzz2Elfeai8e
 

1 comment:

  1. All beef hot dogs that are uncured and kosher are probably the only hot dog one should eat in my opinion. Beef is not allowed to be seperated by machinemaking this type of dog the safest. What Is In a Hot Dog

    Aaron Siegel

    ReplyDelete

For now, we're opening this blog to Anonymous comments. This will continue as long as civility rules. Disagree as you may, just keep it clean and stay on topic. No profanity, and no name calling. We reserve the right to moderate such comments, though the person who made it may come back and reword their message in a more civil way.