Thursday, August 26, 2021

Hot Dogs Are Unhealthy? Who Knew?

A study published last week, conducted by the University of Michigan, evaluated almost 6,000 different foods and rated them according to their “nutritional disease burden.” I’m not sure exactly what “nutritional disease burden” means, but that would make a great name for a rock band.

Anyway, you may have heard about this study, because every news outlet in America focused on one sensational aspect, with headlines like this: “Each hot dog you eat can reduce your lifespan by 36 minutes!”
First, as I mentioned, the hot dog claim is a small but quite eye-opening part of the study. I couldn’t find a single article that bothered to explore the study’s results in detail. And second, the assertion that every hot dog reduces your lifespan by 36 minutes is flat-out wrong. If it were true, then I would’ve died about 10 years before my birth.

Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. (Me? Exaggerate? Never!) I’m not sure if the hot dog claim is supposed to frighten people away from that scrumptious staple of baseball games — not to mention a scrumptious staple of backyard barbeques, company picnics, Sunday brunch, midnight snacks, High Tea with the Queen, and killing time while sitting in the dentist’s waiting room. (Hey, you eat what you want before getting your teeth cleaned, and I’ll eat what I want.)
  
I don’t eat hot dogs nearly as often as I’d like. My Desire-to-Transpire ratio, that is, the number of times I want a hot dog vs. the number of times I actually have one, is about 9 to 1. I estimate that I eat about 50 hot dogs per year, mostly during the summer. So, running the numbers using the “lose 36 minutes” claim, and assuming I’ve eaten 50 hot dogs per year since age four, my life-long hot dog consumption will reduce my lifespan by 75 days, or 2-1/2 months. That’s it?

That doesn’t scare me. Let’s look at it this way: if I never enjoyed a single hot dog during my entire life, I would live, for example, to age 85. But if I enjoy hot dogs throughout my life, this study says I will live only to age 84 years and 9-1/2 months. All I can say to that news is, “Take me out to the ballgame! I’m buying!”
The Michigan study also discussed other foods that will ADD minutes to your lifespan. Fruits, vegetables, and nuts, not surprisingly, are on the list. The positive food that was mentioned most often in news reports was the good ol’ peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A tasty PB&J allegedly will add 33 minutes to your lifespan. I spoke with some people who were very skeptical about this claim. “What kind of jelly?” they demanded. “The kind filled with high fructose corn syrup is not healthy! And what kind of bread? Everyone knows wheat bread is much better for you than white bread.”

I’m really not accepting the results of this study, since it is heavy on sensational sound bites and very light on details. It almost seems like a marketing and public relations firm had more input than actual research scientists.
However, if there are some people in my life who are concerned that I eat too many hot dogs (and I can think of one such person, but I won’t mention her name), I have a solution that will change my minus-36 to only a minus-3. Every time I eat a hot dog, instead of mustard and relish, I will cover that doggie with a heaping helping of peanut butter and jelly. It might taste a little weird at first, but you know me: when it comes to food, I’m all about good health.

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