Billboard warns NASCAR fans about hot dogs, stirs controversy

Cancer Project

(CBS) Let's be frank: Hot dogs probably aren't anyone's idea of a health food. But a new billboard erected near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway issues a stark warning to the legions of weiner lovers who show up for races.

The sign, erected by a watchdog group that has long promoted vegan diets, shows hot dogs poking out of a cigarette package emblazoned with a skull and crossbones and reads "Warning: Hot dogs can wreck your health..

What's the group's beef with hot dogs?

"A hot dog a day could send you to an early grave," Susan Levin, a registered dietitian who serves as nutrition education director of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said in a written statement. "Processed meats like hot dogs can increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and various types of cancer. Like cigarettes, hot dogs should come with a warning label that helps racing fans and other consumers understand the health risk."

The potential health risk of eating hot dogs have been well established. And as CBS News reported in 2010, the risks are associated with bacon and sausage as well as hot dogs.

The group said downing one dog a day can increase the risk for colorectal cancer by 21 percent. Each year, about 143,000 Americans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer and about 53,000 die of it.

"We've had an epidemic of colorectal cancer for decades," the group's president, Dr. Neal Barnard, told CBS New in an email. "Only fairly recently has it become clear that a big part of the reason is the American appetite for hot dogs, bacon, sausage, and other processed meats."

What does the meat industry have to say about the billboard?

"This is an absurd claim," Janet Riley, president of the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, told CBS News. "Trying to link a food product that has clear nutritional value with a product like cigarettes, which have no redeeming qualities, is inflammatory and alarmist."

She called cancer "a very complicated issue" and said the group's real agenda was to eliminate meat from the diets of Americans.

"This is an animal rights group that wants to take away your choices," she said.

What do you think? Should hot dogs be shunned?

 

[jim61938]

For every study involving food that says this item or that item is bad for you there is one that says it isn't. Most of the studies I have seen, once their methodologies are released, that indicate something is bad for you are taken from the extreme end of consumption such as people who eat 4 times as much of something as any "sane" person would or from lab animals that have been force fed something in a period of a couple of weeks or months that is 100 times more than any person can possibly eat or be exposed to in 3 lifetimes.

[D_dubya]

Liberals... Out in California, they are complaining because the National Parks people are trying to enforce a no nudity ban at a San Onofre beach, seeing it as an affront to personal liberty. Meanwhile, they are whining about weiners being bad for your health and want to tax fast foods or force the purveyors of such to swap the fries for fruit. I liberals are bad for one's mental health.

[Nate650]

Studies like this are a joke. There is a big difference between a hot dog made from cheap feedlot beef containing added sodium nitrite and processed junk, and an uncured hot dog made from grass fed beef, yet this article fails to make a distinction between the two.

This reminds me of the mainstream belief that "lard is bad." Well, of course if you use cheap pork and hydrogenate the lard, it's going to be bad. That's a completely different food than non-hydrogenated lard from healthy pasture-raised pigs, which we've been eating for thousands of years with no ill-effects.

[Arne_Paul]

Couldn't agree more, Nate. Besides, look at the evidence. Are you going to take advice from an anemic vegan? Even my vegetarian friends stopped being vegans when they found they were always sick and undernourished.

historical footnote: (which will enrage vegans and creationists simultaneously, so it must be good, LOL): What changed **** sapiens from timid tree dwelling creatures into the successful predators was the expansion of the brain due to a diet of large quantities of meat. Predators must be smarter than vegetarians or they starve!

[gruven13777]

Hilarious. Idiots on here saying that hot dogs are good for you.

Hey QueenofWien...how come you're not talking about how much Sodium Nitrate you put in processed meat?

[D_dubya]

I don't see anyone saying they are good for you. I see people saying having a hot dog now and then won't hurt you. And that is true , in spite of these busybodies who think they are the keepers of the nation's health (I don't recall that election). Does anyone seriously think a billboard like that will cause someone to say, "Oh wow! I didn't know that! I'm going to buy a salad."

[LibbyGarden]

Actually, I'd like to see a lot more of these billboards. Next to every workplace: Warning. Hard work leads to cardiac arrest. Next to the White House: Death and taxes; we're counting on both being certain. Next to hospitals: Enter at your own risk. On the highway: cell phones, dumb people, and driving...not a good thing. Next to the hazardous hot dog sign: Watch for falling rocks, especially the two-legged variety.

[love2ridend]

Will the same people put up a Fried Chicken when Indy has the Black Expo? Its bad also. Nope will not do it. Its politically incorrect.

[jhboob]

I see the troutfishman2 is trying out for "last comic standing". A troll by any other name.... Must be nice to have so much time on our hands. Got that resume together yet? Isn't it about time to move out of Mom's basement?

[jhboob]

So sorry troutboy, just looking at a story during a lull at the office. Like to see what people think/say and there you are spewing every few minutes. Some of us like to take a break from working every so often, not that you would know about that. Enough said, time to go home.

[RogerInHawaii]

The real question is this: Is an increase of 21% in the risk of colorectal cancer really of any significance. It all depends on the actual numbers. If my risk of getting some disease is one in a billion and I do something that increases that risk to two in a billion, I've increased my risk 100%. But so what? It's still incredibly, infinitesimally small. When I weigh that against my enjoyment of whatever it is that causes that increase (eating a hot dog, for example) then maybe it's not so important.
And notice also that the 21% increase is when you eat a hot each and every day, over some unspecified (presumably long) period of time. So your actual increase, when you only eat one every so often, is significantly less.
All in all, a non issue and no one should get upset about it.

[arkajun-2009]

"The group said downing one dog a day can increase the risk for colorectal cancer by 21 percent."

So if I eat a hot dog every other day, I cut my risk in half..down to 10-11%. If I eat a hot dog every 4th day then my risk is cut to 5%. If I eat 1 hot dog a week (which is probably closer to the norm), then my risk is only 2.5%...At this point, I probably stand a higher risk of being crushed to death by a falling "Don't Eat Hotdogs" billboard.

[QueenofWien]

Great to see so many hot dog lovers rejecting the claims in this billboard. Power to the wiener! Keep on eating hot dogs along with your fruits and veggies and all the other foods that make up a balanced diet and get some exercise. Moderation and variety are the keys to good health.

For the record, hot dogs are regulated by USDA and they specify what ingredients can be used. The meat that goes into hot dogs looks a lot like beef stew meat. We add ice, seasonings, salt and curing ingreidents. Then we stuff them into casings and cook them. Technically, hot dogs can be made with variety meats like hearts, but if we use those cuts, we have to call the product "hot dog with variety meats" and we have to add the specific variety meat used (like hearts) to the ingredient panel. It's almost impossible to find hot dogs with variety meats in the case. As a culture, we don't commongly consume them (though they are perfectly wholesome) and as a result, ot dog makers don't add them.

As far as their claims of cancer, we've been around the block with PCRM on these claims before, so here's a convenient link to check out the studies that show hot dogs and other meat products are safe and not associated with cancer. http://www.meatsafety.org/ht/d/sp/i/41359/pid/41359

Frankly yours, Queen of Wien

[displeased2]

Queenie, don't you use meat by-products? Looks like stew meat, eh? Is that after all the scraps are mixed into a gluey goo? Next, I guess you'll claim hot dogs are nutritious. Thanks, but no thanks.