What are hotdogs made out of?!
What are hotdogs made out of?
im scared to find out... kinda
Answers:
"Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made" - Otto von Bismarck
Hot dogs are mostly made of muscle meat from pork, beef, turkey or chicken. The label will indicate which ones were used. Cheaper dogs will have a lot of cereal in them - think flour, oats, cornmeal.
They also have spices in them, seasonings, artificial colors, artificial flavors, and preservatives.
Back before Ralph Nader started complaining about hot dogs in the 1960s, they used organ meats in hot dogs as well. The meat processors got concerned, and replaced the organ meats with cereal, and most hot dogs have never tasted as good since.
Nothing wrong with organ meats. People rave about how great Andouille sausage is, for instance, and it uses tripe (stomach lining) as a major ingredient.
Unfortunately, there's nothing in hot dogs to make you scared - but nothing to make you smack your lips, either....
There is a USDA inspector on site and on duty EVERY MINUTE that hot dogs are being made - and he can and will shut down the plant if the sanitation isn't up to snuff.
My late wife used to be plant nurse for the original Peter Eckrich & Sons factory on Osage Street in Fort Wayne. She was fond of pointing out that people who work in most food factories told their friends not to eat what was being produced. (I used to work at Campbell's, and I tell *my* friends not to eat their products!) The workers at Eckrich, though, were proud of what they made, and told their friends to eat nothing else, because the product was so good.
Beatrice Foods ended up closing the Osage plant in the 1980s, and giving the product lines to the Swift/Butterball folks. Eventually, the Eckrich brand ended up in the hands of ConAgra. They've changed all the recipes. I don't know whether it's safe to eat any more, but it certainly doesn't appeal to me any more.