Are hot dogs all beef?

From the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council

Hot Dogs Across America

If you want to see controversy, just ask a New Yorker his opinion of a Chicago Dog or vice versa. Just like people are loyal to the hometown baseball team, they are equally loyal to their hometown hot dog.

Americans eat billions of hot dogs each year. In restaurants and at street carts, ballparks and backyard barbeques — hot dogs are everywhere! But depending on where you purchase your hot dog, your toppings may differ radically. Here’s our short guide on what to expect when you buy your hot dog away from home.

New York City

New Yorkers eat more hot dogs than any other group in the country. From downtown Manhattan to Coney Island, when you buy your hot dog in the Big Apple, it will come served with steamed onions and a pale, deli-style yellow mustard.

Chicago

The possible antithesis to New York dogs, Chicago dogs are layered with yellow mustard, dark green relish, chopped raw onion, pickle spear, sport peppers, tomato slices and topped with a dash of celery salt and served in a poppy seed bun.

Atlanta and the South

Buying a hot dog at Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves, or elsewhere in Atlanta and the south, you’ll find your dog topped with coleslaw and perhaps some delicious Vidalia onions.

Kansas City

Get the mints out — you’ll need them when you order up a hot dog in KC as it is served with sauerkraut and melted Swiss cheese on a sesame seed bun.

The Rockie Dog

Served at Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies — is a foot-long dog with grilled peppers, kraut and onions.

The Fenway Frank

Served at none other than Fenway Park — is the only dog to eat while watching the Red Sox. It’s boiled and grilled and served in a New England style bun with mustard and relish. New England dogs can also be found topped with Boston baked beans

Sonoran Dog

This Southwestern favorite features a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog on a sturdy bun, pinto beans, grilled onions and green peppers, chopped fresh tomatoes, relish, tomatillo jalapeno salsa, mayonnaise, mustard and shredded cheese.

The Texas Dog

Chili, cheese and jalapenos make this the favored item at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

Michigan Coney Island Dog (AKA Michigan Coney)

This favorite of Michiganders features a meaty chili sauce on top of a hot dog with mustard and onion.

West Virginia Dog

This favorite features chili, mustard and coleslaw atop a wiener on a steamed bun.

New Jersey Dog

A variety of hot dog styles can be found in New Jersey but the one most unique to the state is the Italian Dog. It’s a hot dog in thick pizza bread topped with onions, peppers and deep fried potatoes.

Philadelphia Dog

A classic Philadelphia dog is one of the most interesting ones you’ll find. It features the brotherly love of an all-beef hot dog with a fish cake inside the bun as well. It is often topped with a sweet vinegary slaw and spicy mustard.

Cleveland Polish Boy

Cleveland is home to two unique hot dog offerings. The Polish Boy is a kielbasa or hot dog served on a bun covered with a layer of french fries, a layer of sweet southern style barbecue sauce or hot sauce, and a layer of coleslaw. It is commonly found in carts around town. At Indians games and elsewhere in the city you can also top your hot dog with Stadium Mustard, a type of Brown mustard with similar flavor to a spicy Dijon mustard.

Cincinnati Coney

The home of famous chili is also the home of some delicious chili dogs. These are topped with Cincinnati style chili and usually also feature a heaping mound of grated cheddar cheese on top.

Washington, D.C.

The Nation’s Capital is where you’ll find the half-smoke: a half pork, half beef sausage that is like a hot dog but with more coarsely ground meat and a little extra spice. A classic half-smoke is topped with chili, mustard and onions. You can find them in hot dog joints around the city as well as at Nationals Park.

California

There are many different hot dog varieties sold throughout the state of California, but the one most unique to the state is a bacon wrapped dog with grilled onions and peppers. These are favorites from carts around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Seattle

The Seattle dog offers a topping twist not found in many places around the country…cream cheese. The hot dogs are split in half and grilled before being put in a toasted bun and are also topped with grilled onions. Sriracha sauce and jalapeños are popular additions as well.

Alaska

True to its roots in the far north, the Alaska dog is commonly called a Reindeer hot dog or sausage, but it isn’t actually made from reindeer meat. Instead the meat is typically caribou. The hot dog is served in a steamed bun with grilled onions that are sometimes sautéed in coca-cola.

Get it as a brochure.

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Fast Facts

How Hot Dogs are Made
Consumption Stats
Hot Dog History
Regional Hot Dogs
Hot Dog Etiquette
Kosher Hot Dogs
Hot Dogs in Sports

How Do You Say.

Traveling abroad soon? You’ll never be hungry again with the following translations.

Spanish — Perrito Caliente
Italian — Caldo Cane
French — Chien Chaud
German — Heisser Hund, or Wurst
Portugese — Cachorro Quente
Swedish — Korv, or Varmkorv
Norweigan and Danish — Grillpolser
Czech — Park v Rohliku
Dutch — Worstjes
Finnish — Makkarat

Other Regional Preferences

Midwesterners eat more pork and beef hot dogs than any other region of the country. Westerners eat more poultry hot dogs than any other region of the country. However, southerners are a close second.Easterners prefer all-beef hot dogs and consume more than any other region of the country.

What Are Hot Dogs Made Of? : The Different Types of Meat Used in Hot Dogs

In the streets of New York, Sydney and many other cities around the world, hot dogs are undeniably some of the most sought after street food. These juicy treats are sold in hot dog stands and served in parties to everyone’s delight.

But before sinking your teeth into all that hot dog goodness, a certain question might have crossed your mind one too many times. What are hot dogs made of?

Despite its name, hot dogs don’t come from actual dogs. These all-time favourites are traditionally made using different types of meat. Below are four of the most common examples.

BEEF

Beef is the traditional meat used in making hot dogs. Many manufacturers produce all-beef hot dogs which means you can enjoy an entire hot dog made from pure beef with no added fillers. Beef hot dogs come in different varieties, with kosher and franks being the two most popular. Franks are known to be strongly seasoned and kosher is often heavily seasoned with garlic. These meat treats are popularly served by mobile catering providers at parties and events.

PORK

Next to beef, pork is another type of meat used in classic hot dogs. Wieners, for example, are a variety of hot dogs that are mostly made of pork. For these types of hot dogs, the meat is taken off the animal’s bones using meat recovery machinery. This advanced equipment separates the edible parts from the inedible ones without crushing the bones.

CHICKEN

Chicken is a less expensive type of hot dog meat. Apart from its low cost, chicken also has less calories, less fats and lots of protein, making it a great alternative to beef and pork. Meat from chicken breasts and thighs are commonly used to manufacture hot dogs. The meat is mechanically separated from the bones and based on regulations, hot dogs may contain any amount of chicken trimmings.

TURKEY

A large percentage of hot dogs are made from turkey. Just like chicken, its meat is mechanically separated and it may come in any amount in hot dogs. Turkey is a great source of protein as well as Vitamins B6 and B12, zinc, choline and niacin. However, it must be noted that this type of meat contains more fat and calories.

Regardless of the type of meat, there is one thing you need to remember – better meat makes better hot dogs. When buying hot dogs, make sure to check labels and the nutrition information. It’s also smart to know where and how the animals were raised to ensure the quality of the meat.

If you’re looking for top quality hot dogs, Yummy Dogs has only the best to offer. We bring you authentic hot dogs for that authentic hot dog experience. We also provide party catering in Sydney, serving our original hot dogs with over 15 delicious relishes. Make your event a successful and unforgettable one. Pick up the phone and call us today!

This Is Secretly What’s in Your Hot Dog

Hot dogs are a quintessential summer barbecue staple, but oftentimes, the ingredients are far from what we’d deem necessary. From all the tall tales you’ve heard about franks — enter: pink slime and rodent remains — wouldn’t you like to know what’s really in that wiener before you hit up your next cookout or beachside BBQ?

We decided to take a peek at the ingredient lists of two popular hot dog brands: Ball Park and Nathans. Then, we enlisted the help of certified health and wellness coach and integrative nutritionist Molly Hoffman to go through each ingredient listed to review what it actually is as well as what effect it may have on your body.

Find out what these questionable terms really mean below. And just so you know, we’re in no way trying to deter you from enjoying this grilling staple. Just order one of the healthiest hot dogs (listed at the end of this article), and jushe it up with these 16 Delicious Ways to Dress Your Hot Dog Beyond Ketchup and Mustard.

Ball Park’s Classic Hot Dogs

Take a look at the ingredient list of Ball Park’s Classic Hot Dogs: Mechanically Separated Chicken, Pork, Water, Corn Syrup, Potassium Lactate, Contains 2% Or Less: Salt, Sodium Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Beef Stock, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Erythorbate, Maltodextrin, Paprika Extract, Sodium Nitrite.

Now, let’s dive into each of these to explain what they are, why they’re in your hot dog, and what they can do to your body.

Mechanically Separated Chicken

According to the USDA, mechanically separated chicken «is a paste-like and batter-like poultry product produced by forcing bones with attached edible tissue through a sieve or similar device under high pressure to separate bone from the edible tissue.» Mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969.

What makes mechanically separated chicken different than the legs and thighs you covet at barbecues? Well, it comes from the same animal, but it’s the waste you typically set out for the garbage truck. See, in the ’60s, someone in the meat industry began to question whether there was any use for the gristly pieces of meat left clinging to carcasses after the recognizable cuts had been removed. To answer the question, processors began siphoning animal remains — bones and all — through pressurized sieves that extracted all the edible pieces and churned them into a bright pink paste, according to the USDA. The goal was to wring every last dollar out of every last carcass, and a British chief trading standards officer estimated the cuts to be 10 times cheaper than traditional cuts. Today, mechanical separation is commonplace, and the extracted sludge is typically pressed into hot dogs, jerky sticks, and other processed deli meats.

Potassium Lactate

Because it inhibits mold and fungus growth, potassium lactate is a commonly-used preservative in hot dogs and deli meats. You might see sodium lactate on other frankfurters’ ingredient lists, as well. That’s a type of salt «added to food to extend shelf life and inhibit the growth of pathogens in meat,» Hoffman says.

Natural Flavor

«Don’t be fooled by the word ‘natural’ as these flavors may be extracted via toxic chemicals that are not present on the food label,» Hoffman says.

Sodium Diacetate

Sodium diacetate battles the pathogens introduced by unscrupulous farming practices. In April 2011, researchers in Arizona tested meat and poultry samples from five major US cities and discovered that 47 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, the bacterial strain responsible for most staph infections. Worse yet, more than half were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. Where did these drug-resistant superbugs come from? It’s suspected that by constantly pumping farm animals full of bacteria-fighting drugs to promote growth, food producers have encouraged the growth of stronger bacterial strains. 6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

According to the FDA, 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the US are used on animals, not people, and that’s why we need additives like sodium diacetate: to protect us from our own food system. (It’s enough to make you want to stock your kitchen with meat-free proteins.) And the sodium erythorbate on the ingredients list? That’s «a preservative usually added to meat to maintain aesthetics,» Hoffman adds.

Sodium Nitrite

The most controversial additive on this ingredient list, nitrites and nitrates are unsettlingly common in the deli cooler, and they play roles in curing and preserving the pinkish color of meats and fish. «Sodium nitrate is a food preservative used to maintain artificial flavors, create appealing colors, and add flavor to processed meats like hot dogs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared Sodium nitrate as a ‘probable’ carcinogen,» Hoffman says. Trouble is, once ingested, nitrites can bond with amines to form cancer-causing nitrosamines.

Fat

You might think that all the poultry being pumped into hot dogs has made them leaner over the years, but the numbers don’t lie. According to the USDA, in 1937 the average hot dog was composed of 19 percent fat and 19.6 percent protein. The humble frankfurter has plumped up quite a bit in the last 75 years; today, hot dogs contain about 28 percent fat to just 11.7 percent protein. Ball Park, one of America’s iconic dogs, fares even worse.

Nathan’s Original Beef Frankfurters

As for other hot dog brands, such as Nathan’s: «Although the first ingredient in Nathan’s hot dogs is highly recognizable ‘Beef,’ you should consider where the meat came from. It is highly likely that the non-organic beef hot dogs are produced from low-quality scraps with an abundance of added hormones,» Hoffman warns. Nathan’s Original Beef Frankfurters may have «Natural» plastered on their labels, yet they’re anything but. If you plan to pick up a pack of these dogs before grilling, you’ll some other sketchy ingredients on its list. Take a look:

Beef, Water, Contains 2% or less of Salt, Sorbitol, Sodium Lactate, Natural Flavoring, Sodium Phosphate, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein, Paprika, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite

Sorbitol

«Sorbitol is a highly processed sugar alcohol that can cause digestive distress like gas and bloat. Definitely not something you want to have at a pool party!» Hoffman states.

Sodium Phosphate

«Sodium Phosphate is a food additive used to keep processed meats moist. Historically it was used as a treatment for constipation as it can cause stomach upset. Additionally, too much of this additive can cause an imbalance of minerals in the body like calcium, and eventually cause osteoporosis.»

Hydrolyzed Corn Protein

«Hydrolyzed Corn Protein is a flavor enhancer that contains glutamic acid. Many are familiar with the sodium salt version of glutamic acid called MSG which can cause migraines, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, increased risk of obesity and increased LDL cholesterol (just to name a few!),» Hoffman says.

What hot dogs to buy

In its best, most unadulterated form, a hot dog can still be a solid meal option, but you must choose wisely.

April Benshosan

April is a born-and-raised Brooklynite who has a passion for all things health, wellness, and tastebud-related. Read more about April