Eating a Hot Dog Can Take 36 Minutes Off Your Life
Most people don’t know what hot dogs are made of… and that rarely stops millions of Americans from downing at least four of them at every summer barbecue.
That might all change now, after a study posted by the University of Michigan suggests that eating just one hot dog takes 36 minutes off your life.
The research evaluated nearly 6,000 different foods, ranking them by their nutritional disease burden to humans. A beef hot dog on a bun resulted in 36 minutes lost, “largely due to the detrimental effect of processed meat,” the study found.
New research evaluated more than 5,800 foods and their impact on human health & the environment.
— Michigan Public Health (@umichsph) August 19, 2021
An astonishing finding? Eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life, & eating a serving of nuts instead could help you gain 26 minutes.
READ: https://t.co/SZ7GMYPUEQ pic.twitter.com/t3nm89zUzQ
Imagine what all those folks who sign up for hot dog eating competitions in Coney Island every year think. ABC News‘ Will Ganss asked registered dietician Christy Brissette if competitive hot dog eating legend Joey Chestnut should be concerned. “Does he need to be worried that all of these hot dogs are just taking years and years off of his life?” In competition alone, Joey has eaten over 1,000 hot dogs, adding up to nearly 40,000 minutes off of his life, almost a month’s worth taken away.
To which Brissette warned, “I think if you’re eating hot dogs in a Joey-type of way, this could be a turning point in your life to maybe cut back a little bit. If you enjoy a hot dog once in a while, completely fine. Everybody wants to have fun foods in their life, and that’s part of enjoying eating.”
Joey took to Twitter after seeing the study, noting that he should eat more nuts; he also theorizes that the researchers at the University of Michigan “could be working for Russia.”
Interesting, I might need to eat more nuts to get time back. Or... Researchers at University of Michigan could be working for Russia https://t.co/4aTcOHk77e
— Joey Chestnut (@joeyjaws) August 23, 2021
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood have been found to allow people to gain 48 minutes of healthy minutes per day, while reducing your dietary carbon footprint by one-third.
