Eating 1 hot dog can take 36 minutes off your life, says study

If you are like us, then you think about maintaining a long and as healthy as possible. However, with that goal in mind, maybe you should stay away from hot dogs. Why? Well, a new study indicates they can take precious minutes off your life because of the effect they have on your body.

The new research published in the specialized journal Nature Food and developed by the University of Michigan, in the United States, it sought to understand the effects of foods such as the famous hot dogs both on the human body and on the environment.

More than 5,800 types of food were analyzed, ranked by their effect on health (such as risk of heart disease, cancer, among others) and environmental impact. What the researchers found was that changing 10% of your daily caloric intake from meat and processed meats (which have chemical preservatives) for fruits, vegetables, seeds and legumes and some types of seafood can potentially lead to health improvements, such as gaining 48 minutes of “healthy living” a day.

Other than that, this small change can reduce your carbon footprint, that is, your total emission of harmful gases into the environment, by up to 33%.

And for those who think that making permanent changes is worth it, but that making an exception every now and then is also advantageous… think again. The same study explained that eating just one hot dog can take 36 minutes off your life due to the effects generated by the processed meat present in the sausage. Thankfully, other snacks don’t have that same effect. The famous peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so beloved in the United States, can add 33 minutes to life, even without specifying the type of bread or the ingredients in the study.

Shall we say goodbye to the hot dog?

Truth be told, studies like this are always interesting because they bring new analyzes, but to determine someone’s lifetime from the consumption of only one or another food is to ignore a series of variants (such as individual metabolism) that may also interfere with this calculation.

Despite this, there are other studies that corroborate the premise of avoiding as much as possible ultra-processed foods, such as sausages and sausages, for example, because they are considered carcinogenic in humans. The World Health Organization, for example, is one of those that supports this concept.

The amount of physical activity a person practices, their sleep patterns and even stress also need to be considered in this account, according to Keri Gansauthor of The Small Change Diet, tells Shape magazine.

“Rather than demonizing a single food, we should be looking at how often it is included in the context of a person’s total diet,” he explains. “Eating a hot dog once in a while is very different from eating a hot dog 365 days a year.”

That is, more than taking the determinations of a study with iron and fire, it is important to stop and analyze the general picture of your life, your life and eating habits as a whole. If a hot dog is something you like a lot, it’s not a problem to eat it when you feel like it, as long as you keep a routine as close to balanced as possible, according to your needs. For this, by the way, it is always worth consulting a nutritionist to understand what your body needs and how it processes the diet you follow today.