Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and it's just the two of us.
Speaker 1: But that's okay because we are hot dogging it, not
Speaker 1: porky pig in it, hot dog in it. On this
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff you Should Know. This could have been
Speaker 1: a two parter, easy, easy, peasy. Yeah, we could have
Speaker 1: done even getting into and then dogs. No, there's so
Speaker 1: much here. But at the end of it, I was like, boy,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about corn dogs. I got a little
Speaker 1: bit on chili dogs, but there wasn't anything in here
Speaker 1: on chili dogs. Is a hot dog of sandwich? John
Speaker 1: Hodgman's famous uh lifelong battle? Are we still talking about that?
Speaker 1: There's a that we're not. But that's the point is
Speaker 1: there was. There's a lot more to hot dogs. The
Speaker 1: foot long. Don't even mention it. We won't even talk
Speaker 1: about the foot long. I think the foot long is
Speaker 1: illegal now and we're not allowed to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I'm on sure nanny state thanks to Uncle Joe Biden. Alright,
Speaker 1: let's talk about hot dog, dude. This has been a
Speaker 1: long time coming. I'm surprised we haven't talked about. And
Speaker 1: you're right, we're biting off a lot here, but we
Speaker 1: can chew it, pass it through our our guts and
Speaker 1: out of our pooper. And that's what everybody's gonna hear.
Speaker 1: Do you like hot dogs? Can we go ahead? And
Speaker 1: I got two questions. You like hot dogs? I like
Speaker 1: a good hot dog? Yeah? And do you boil them
Speaker 1: or grill them? Oh? I don't. I try not to
Speaker 1: grill anything. I think grilling makes everything taste worse. What
Speaker 1: smoking a little bit is okay, but grilling, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not a grilled person. That is very strange, Like like
Speaker 1: a hot dog that's been placed on a grill, blackened
Speaker 1: and split open is preferable to one that retains all
Speaker 1: of its taste when it's just appropriately reheated and plumped
Speaker 1: up and say boiled water, even just in the microwave.
Speaker 1: I am shocked that you don't like a char on meats.
Speaker 1: That's no, it's not very you. I don't. It's too
Speaker 1: you know why, because I'm a bitter supertaster. I can
Speaker 1: barely tolerate grapefruit, certainly can't tolerate char on anything like
Speaker 1: barbecue chicken. I mean, what is the point of barbecue chicken,
Speaker 1: because you burn that sauce onto it. It's great. No,
Speaker 1: it's awful. Oh it's so bad, So I'm taking it.
Speaker 1: You like them grilled most of all? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I'll eat a boiled hot dog for sure, but oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a grilled hot dog that has got some bubbly black
Speaker 1: that's split open the best. Not for me. But you
Speaker 1: do like hot dogs. Are you above below or about
Speaker 1: at the national average of hot dogs consumed per year
Speaker 1: among Americans? Well, that is seventy hot dogs, and I
Speaker 1: am above now well below that. I probably I'd probably
Speaker 1: eat less than ten hot dogs a year. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I've got you beat by a mile.
Speaker 1: But how many do you eat a year? I would
Speaker 1: guess anywhere between forty or fifty. I mean maybe I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think, because I feel like they usually come
Speaker 1: in two's mhm, Like at a barbecue or something a
Speaker 1: cook out, I'll have a couple of hot dogs and
Speaker 1: and we're not counting this is just hot dogs, because
Speaker 1: I definitely love me some brought worst and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but um, straight up hot dogs. I probably don't eat
Speaker 1: more than twelve or fifteen a year, I would say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know the key to beer brots. Everybody does it wrong.
Speaker 1: Everybody soaks the brons in beer beforehand. That does nothing
Speaker 1: to them because boils no soaked. Some people soak them,
Speaker 1: pre soak them, or even boil them. Yeah, people boil them. Okay,
Speaker 1: now that would work if the brons were split open.
Speaker 1: What you want to do is grill them first. And
Speaker 1: I you think a grill broad is preferable to a
Speaker 1: microwavor boiled broad be grill at first so that it
Speaker 1: splits open. Then you soak it or simmer it in beer,
Speaker 1: and then it sucks the beer in. That's how you
Speaker 1: make a beer brought. You don't do beer first. It
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything. It's a waste of perfectly good beer.
Speaker 1: Even if it's bad beer, you're still wasting it. I
Speaker 1: can't wait for the emails on this one. I'm right.
Speaker 1: I don't care what anybody says they're wrong. I'm right.
Speaker 1: I've tried it. Alright. So hot dogs seventy per year,
Speaker 1: supposedly twenty billion hot dogs in the United States alone
Speaker 1: annually a year. Isn't that insane? No, it's insane. That's
Speaker 1: an insane amount of hot dogs, because think about it,
Speaker 1: if I'm eating forty, that means there's somebody out there
Speaker 1: eating their seventy plus my extra thirty. Joey Chestni will
Speaker 1: do that in three minutes. Yeah. Every time I see that,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of that huff Post article that Ryan Reynolds
Speaker 1: wrote about how he's disgusted by competitive eating. Just a
Speaker 1: great going back and reading in every year or two.
Speaker 1: It really it really stands up. It's funny, but it's
Speaker 1: also very It makes some really good points too. I
Speaker 1: love Ryan Reynolds, well, you'll like him even more after this. Um. So,
Speaker 1: hot dogs are sausages, but um, that doesn't mean a
Speaker 1: sausage is a hot dog. It falls under that category
Speaker 1: of sausage, which is basically any product where you grind
Speaker 1: up meat and you put a bunch of spice and
Speaker 1: stuff in it, and then you cook it in a casing,
Speaker 1: usually like some sort of sheep skin um as we'll
Speaker 1: see with or sheep intestine. Not skin, really tough to eat,
Speaker 1: threw it. It would be rimmed sheep skin. The hot
Speaker 1: dogs we know and love this that you get at
Speaker 1: your regular old grocery store are not generally cooked in
Speaker 1: that sheep casing. It is a fake casing that goes away. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they are cooked, you know. Un that's while. You
Speaker 1: can eat a hot dog right out of the old package, yes,
Speaker 1: and you should once in a while. It keeps you
Speaker 1: human insane. I like a hot dog sandwich, like a
Speaker 1: raw not raw bread a cold Yeah. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I used to cut it lengthwise into it,
Speaker 1: like I guess, eight little thin strips and throw a
Speaker 1: couple of those on a sammy with some mayo and cheese.
Speaker 1: Oh that sounds I would try that for sure. It's good,
Speaker 1: but we don't. My daughter eats hot dogs occasionally and
Speaker 1: she loves them, but we don't. Kids will eat them
Speaker 1: every day if you if you buy them, but we
Speaker 1: just don't buy them and keep them in the house.
Speaker 1: That's how I eat fourty yr fifty hot dogs a
Speaker 1: year is buying them at the store and keeping them
Speaker 1: in the house pack right. Yeah, So over the course
Speaker 1: of like a week or so, four or five times
Speaker 1: a year, I will eat a pack of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: That's how I'm hitting for you. If it were just
Speaker 1: me being out, I would eat zero because I haven't
Speaker 1: left my house in two years. But chuck We've now
Speaker 1: reached to me the fact of the podcast, and I
Speaker 1: would love to take it if you would be so, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I have no idea what you're gonna say. Are
Speaker 1: you ready for this? Yes, malogney, you know blogney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a flat hot dog. It is. It's a
Speaker 1: giant hot dog. It's cut into slices. That's bolognay. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot for taking the fact of the podcast. But yes,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you didn't know that bologny. It never occurred
Speaker 1: to you that the taste is identical. No, no, I hadn't.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that Bologna is a giant hot dog.
Speaker 1: And now I'm just like, I want to see a
Speaker 1: whole intact bologney before oscar Meyer slices it up, because
Speaker 1: that must be astounding. Just go to any deli on
Speaker 1: planet Earth that's different, that's different, that looks that looks different,
Speaker 1: that looks more like a traditional sausage. I'm saying, like,
Speaker 1: I want to see the hot dog, the giant hot
Speaker 1: dog that oscar Meyer produces and then slices up into
Speaker 1: bolognay and packages the portions of it into bologna packages.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to see. Well again, they're right
Speaker 1: there in the deli case, a big giant log of Bogny.
Speaker 1: Not the same. I guess I want to see it
Speaker 1: out of the package. I don't know what I want
Speaker 1: to see. Well, it's got that red packaging around it.
Speaker 1: You just want to strip its clothes off and stare it,
Speaker 1: throw a sheep skin on it. Well, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: ruined that I thought every of knew that Bologny was
Speaker 1: a hot dog. No, you're the only person besides the
Speaker 1: National Hot Dog Council president who knows that Bologna is
Speaker 1: a giant hot dog. Well, don't you remember the song
Speaker 1: My Bologne has a first name? It's h O D
Speaker 1: D O G. Yes, I know that song, but it
Speaker 1: never really sunk in in the lyrics. All Right, the
Speaker 1: U s D has a U s D A has
Speaker 1: a definition for hot dog. Uh should we read it?
Speaker 1: I guess yeah. I think it's very instructive. All right,
Speaker 1: Frankfurter's ak A. Hot Dogs, wieners, or bologny are cooked
Speaker 1: and or smoked sausages according to Federal Standards of Identity.
Speaker 1: The standard also requires that they be uh comminuted, which
Speaker 1: is reduced to tiny particles semi solid products made from
Speaker 1: one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle from livestock
Speaker 1: like beef for pork, and may contain poultry meat. Smoking
Speaker 1: and curing ingredients contribute to the flavor, color, and preservation
Speaker 1: of the product. They are linked, shaped, and come in
Speaker 1: all sizes wait for it, long than and chubby, chubby
Speaker 1: chebby hot dog. It's probably too late for a content
Speaker 1: warning to our vegetarian friends. Hopefully they know better than
Speaker 1: to listen to one on hot dog. Yeah, but technically, um,
Speaker 1: a hot dog does not have to be made of meat.
Speaker 1: It can be made of vegetable protein. Well yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean as far as the grossness that's to come,
Speaker 1: I was just trying to toss them a bone, the
Speaker 1: vegans a bone. So the thing that differentiates hot dogs
Speaker 1: from other types of sausages is how finely ground the
Speaker 1: internal stuff is. It's ground so much, every bit of it,
Speaker 1: from the spices, the flavorings, the meat, everything it's ground
Speaker 1: into is such a granular um constitution. That's not right,
Speaker 1: but still uh that you can't differentiate one thing from another.
Speaker 1: It's all just particles and that you kind of stick
Speaker 1: together into that casing. And they form a mass. They
Speaker 1: go from semi solid maybe even almost liquid two a
Speaker 1: jiggli mass that tastes delicious. That's right. Uh. The USDA
Speaker 1: says you'r hot dogs can contain no more than fat
Speaker 1: and ten percent water and three point five percent non
Speaker 1: meat uh filler, which is generally a binder um like
Speaker 1: they use cereals or dry milk, sometimes soy protein isolated
Speaker 1: soy protein. And this is to bind it together. And
Speaker 1: three point five percent of your hot dog can be
Speaker 1: made up of this. Yeah, we'll get a little more
Speaker 1: into the into the weeds and what's in your hot dogs?
Speaker 1: I say we take a break first and then jump in. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it. I want to learn about a ters
Speaker 1: or act, how to take a propect with all about
Speaker 1: fractal kiscon that's another hun. The Lizzie Border murders that
Speaker 1: they can have all runs on the plane, everything that
Speaker 1: we should know. Word up, Jerry, all right, our buddy,
Speaker 1: the great Dave Ruse. The rooster. Yeah, the rooster. I
Speaker 1: can't believe we missed that before. My gosh, just just
Speaker 1: sitting right there. So the rooster helped us. Um And sorry, David,
Speaker 1: if you hate that nickname. I think that's it now,
Speaker 1: just let us know. But he helps us with this one,
Speaker 1: and he basically said, Okay, yes, like we really should
Speaker 1: establish that there is actual meat in your hot dog.
Speaker 1: And no, it's not mystery meat like it can. There
Speaker 1: can be the horrific stuff that you, um, you suspect
Speaker 1: as in your hot dog, like lips and noses and
Speaker 1: tails and all that stuff. Legally it can be, but
Speaker 1: you will know if that's in there, because those ingredients
Speaker 1: have to be listed individually on the packet, and then
Speaker 1: on the front it has to say that it's a
Speaker 1: hot dog with byproducts or a hot dog with mine.
Speaker 1: Your favorite band name Variety meets Yeah that saw that
Speaker 1: would come in Yeah, it's uh what would have variety?
Speaker 1: What kind of band would that be? Variety meats jeez,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think they play like Calliope music,
Speaker 1: like Circus music or something insane. You know what that is? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh yes, And and sort of the takeaway from all
Speaker 1: of this, after we read you all of these ingredients
Speaker 1: and things is read the package. If like, if you
Speaker 1: want to know what's in your hot dog, don't just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I don't know what's in these things,
Speaker 1: Sure you do. It's printed right there, so just just
Speaker 1: read it. It'll tell you if there's lips in there
Speaker 1: or organ meat. Even they can't put hearts or kidneys
Speaker 1: or anything in there unless they list them. And the
Speaker 1: other thing that Dave says is the major hot dog
Speaker 1: brands do not use that stuff. I think it's just
Speaker 1: bad for business. It's not worth it. Can we read
Speaker 1: what Day wrote? Is this really low quality meat? It's
Speaker 1: not filet man on if that's what you're asking, but
Speaker 1: it isn't nostrils and anuses either, which I think really
Speaker 1: gets it across, you know. Yeah, so um, we should
Speaker 1: say that it can be. You can get your pork
Speaker 1: hot dogs, your beef hot dogs, you can get chicken dogs,
Speaker 1: turkey dogs, obviously your vegan dogs that they make these days.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's there's beyond sausages. I have not tried
Speaker 1: them yet. I haven't either. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: make a hot dog hot dog they make a sausage,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure they will at some point because they're
Speaker 1: just you know, they're covering all their bases, I think.
Speaker 1: And beyond um, I know, I'm sorry that was terrible.
Speaker 1: So beef. We're talking about a beef hot dog. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's the main meat in there? Is going to be
Speaker 1: what's called trimmings. And this is the meat that is
Speaker 1: not used as far as like when they're when they're
Speaker 1: I know, please don't listen if you're a vegetarian, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to stop listening to the rest of this episode. Now.
Speaker 1: When they're cutting the beef and the cow apart and
Speaker 1: making steaks and roasts and things like that, they're either
Speaker 1: doing it by hand or maybe there's a machine involved.
Speaker 1: The trimmings are the things that are sort of left over.
Speaker 1: It's still meat, and it's still like fat and beef.
Speaker 1: Like if you get ground beef that's not super specific,
Speaker 1: that's also trimmings. Yeah, and so like with trimmings, Um,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just the stuff that's left over. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with it. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it's it's like fat and meat. But there can only
Speaker 1: be like x amount I think thirty of fat that
Speaker 1: can make it into meat products. So there's it would
Speaker 1: be extraordinarily wasteful to just throw that away because it's
Speaker 1: not fully mignon or it's not round roast like that.
Speaker 1: It's stupid to just get rid of it. It's actually
Speaker 1: super disrespectful for to the animal that you just slaughtered
Speaker 1: to throw away a significant portion of their edible carcass.
Speaker 1: If you're into eating their carcasses, you should probably be
Speaker 1: okay with meat trimmings being you used in ground beef
Speaker 1: and hot dogs and stuff like that. Right, beef cannot
Speaker 1: legally be mechanically separated anymore because of mad cow disease.
Speaker 1: In two thousand four, the U s d A says,
Speaker 1: you can't mechanically separate beef, but you can mechanically separate
Speaker 1: um poultry and pork pork um, and you're getting trimmings
Speaker 1: and poultry and pork as well. If you want to
Speaker 1: be presented with the full horror of eating meat, watch
Speaker 1: some trade videos of mechanical separators that like the producers
Speaker 1: who make those machines have on their sites. It's just
Speaker 1: it's insane. It's like, this is what we're eating. It's nuts.
Speaker 1: But it also is super efficient in that they take
Speaker 1: the pieces of the carcass that have just little bits
Speaker 1: of like meat and edible like muscle and tendons and
Speaker 1: stuff attached to them still and put them under different
Speaker 1: states of pressure through a sieve, and that that actually
Speaker 1: forces that little bit left of meat and edible like
Speaker 1: muscle off of the bone. It separates them. It's mechanically
Speaker 1: separating them so that you can use that stuff and
Speaker 1: make things like hot dogs or ground pork or ground
Speaker 1: turkey and that kind of stuff. It's it's again, it
Speaker 1: would be deeply wasteful to just throw that stuff away
Speaker 1: because again, it's not a chicken breast or it's not
Speaker 1: a fully mignon, and it's actually very sensible. But it
Speaker 1: also kind of brings you full circle back to how
Speaker 1: horrific modern meat processing and agriculture really is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: those mechanical separators are based on my grandmother Bryant's mouth.
Speaker 1: Oh could she do that? Well? She was. She legendarily
Speaker 1: would come around and get your fried chicken bones off
Speaker 1: your plate, be like, you're not gonna eat that? Did
Speaker 1: she call you? And my brother and I would try
Speaker 1: because we knew would happen. We would try and get
Speaker 1: every bit of meat off that thing, and she would
Speaker 1: find more meat, and like when she was done with it,
Speaker 1: it looked like a cartoon bone, you know, like when
Speaker 1: they pull the fish out of a cat's mouth, nothing
Speaker 1: nothing left. Uh, and she lived to be a hundred
Speaker 1: and one. So well that's how she hated all that cartilage,
Speaker 1: my sweet grandmother, briant Um. They're also uh we talked
Speaker 1: about spices earlier. They're salt, sugar and spices and hot dogs.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of sodium and a hot dog. Um,
Speaker 1: you've got your regular old table salt, you've got liquid salt,
Speaker 1: sodium lactate. Uh, you've got sodium diacetate prevents bacteria growth.
Speaker 1: You don't want listeria, then you're gonna want that sodium
Speaker 1: diacetate in there. Yeah, a lot of this. These types
Speaker 1: of sodium are also used for curing too, sure, and
Speaker 1: well there's a whole Uh there's a lot of laundry
Speaker 1: to impact with the with the curing that we'll get
Speaker 1: into in a few minutes. But um, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sodium. I think of your daily sodium intake you
Speaker 1: can get from a single hot dog, Frank, which who
Speaker 1: just eats one hot dog? So let's just say it.
Speaker 1: And I don't call them Frank's either, do you No?
Speaker 1: And I don't think I know anybody who does call
Speaker 1: them frank. I've only seen it or heard it on
Speaker 1: TV before. Yeah, and what we'll get to the naming
Speaker 1: later on as well. Um, you also can get high
Speaker 1: fruit tose corn syrup syrup in your dog because of
Speaker 1: you know, some people do it, some people don't. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not a lot. But I saw how it's made.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if you really want to, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one if you either do or don't
Speaker 1: want to eat hot dogs anymore. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you're gonna come out of it, but just watch the
Speaker 1: how it's made on hot dogs. The part where they're
Speaker 1: the finished hot dogs are shooting out of that machine
Speaker 1: like they're being run up a salmon ladder or something.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's mesmerizing. But but the goop that they
Speaker 1: put in the casing. But yeah, again though it's just
Speaker 1: it's edible meat. It's it's just dorble meat. Like I
Speaker 1: I know where you're coming from. There. It is it
Speaker 1: is meat, and it is spices. It is garlic and
Speaker 1: pepper and coriander and maybe paprika. Um. Maybe some we'll
Speaker 1: get into the celery salt thing or celery powder thing.
Speaker 1: So and it's water. Um, it is all these things.
Speaker 1: But when it's pumped, made into a slurry and pumped
Speaker 1: out of a tube, it definitely looks like like pretty gross.
Speaker 1: It's kind of gray. And it's just just watch the video. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hot dogs, hot dogs, bologna, all that stuff would be
Speaker 1: a flat gray if it weren't for some of the
Speaker 1: curing agents that they put in there. And apparently they
Speaker 1: also use cherry powder sometimes too for its coloring, to
Speaker 1: color them a pink. Okay, you might also fly find
Speaker 1: some msg uh, you might find some yeese extract. You
Speaker 1: might find some beef stock smoke flavoring. Yeah, that liquid smoke,
Speaker 1: cause you know what that is. That's actual liquid smoke
Speaker 1: where they condense smoke from hardwoods and turn it into
Speaker 1: water vapor and collect that water vapor. That's what liquid smoke.
Speaker 1: Isn't that nuts? Yeah? I used to be a fan
Speaker 1: of that. I would keep some in the house, but
Speaker 1: I don't know not not do that anymore. I mean, I
Speaker 1: thought it was like all science, like just completely like
Speaker 1: isolated flavors and all that, and it's actually no, it's
Speaker 1: it's it is what it says on the tin. So
Speaker 1: should we get into sodium nitrite and the nitrites. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good band featuring variety meets uh.
Speaker 1: Because you're gonna find some sodium nitrite and some hot dogs.
Speaker 1: You might also find hot dogs that are like, we
Speaker 1: don't use nitrites, no nitrites, Um, we use celery powder
Speaker 1: or maybe cultured celery juice instead. And people might think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's got to be way better for you, because I've
Speaker 1: heard nitrites, if you cook them at high heat, can
Speaker 1: give you cancer. Yeah. So, like the whole thing is
Speaker 1: is that under certain conditions, nitrites can turn into uh nitro,
Speaker 1: same means, nitro, same means, and those, starting back in
Speaker 1: the seventies were linked to I think bowel cancer and
Speaker 1: possibly stomach cancer. And so everybody started getting really worried
Speaker 1: about nitrites and people stopped using nitrites. Well, they still
Speaker 1: use them, like in any of the classic hot dogs
Speaker 1: that you see for sale, they use regular old nitrites.
Speaker 1: But celery powder was was offered up as like an alternative,
Speaker 1: a natural alternative to nitrites, and that it did all
Speaker 1: of the same things. Um, but it was a natural
Speaker 1: alternative because it's celery. And the problem is is like
Speaker 1: to your body, a nitrite from celery and a nitrite
Speaker 1: that was isolated in the lab is the same exact thing,
Speaker 1: and it's going to have the same exact effects on you.
Speaker 1: And if those effects are to give you colon cancer,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get it, whether it's from celery powder or
Speaker 1: whether it's from the nitrites that where I selated in
Speaker 1: the lab. Yeah, and this is I mean, boy, if
Speaker 1: you start looking up articles on celery powder and nitrites
Speaker 1: and cancer, it's a rabbit hole. Like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information out there. UM. At one point, just a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, the National Organic Standards Board, it
Speaker 1: was up for a vote whether or not to keep
Speaker 1: celery powder on the list of acceptable organic ingredients. UM.
Speaker 1: Largely because of this, uh, not just because of hot dogs,
Speaker 1: but you know they used on bacon and like in
Speaker 1: any kind of cured meat you might find a nitrite
Speaker 1: or celery powder. And they said they voted eleven to one,
Speaker 1: I think, or maybe it was ten to one, but
Speaker 1: it was it was super lopsided to keep celery powder
Speaker 1: on the list. It's so weird organics. There's this really
Speaker 1: great article by Jesse Hirsch on the site called the
Speaker 1: counter dot org worth checking out about that. UM. But
Speaker 1: it was it doesn't make sense that they would keep
Speaker 1: it on there like unmolested, because it's just so misleading
Speaker 1: because if you use celery powder, you can say that
Speaker 1: your hot dogs are uncured, even though they would as
Speaker 1: sensibly have the same impact on your body as cured
Speaker 1: hot dogs. And then even worse, because it's natural. Celery
Speaker 1: powder can be used in organic products and still be
Speaker 1: listed as organic, but the celery used doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be organic. Yeah, and um celery. It turns out, Jesse
Speaker 1: Hirst pointed out in that article that um celeries, particularly
Speaker 1: adept of all the vegetables at really soaking in pesticides
Speaker 1: and herbicides um into its little body and passing it
Speaker 1: along well as sensibly passing it along. So it is
Speaker 1: really weird that they just kind of went whole hog,
Speaker 1: or continue to go whole hog on on celery being
Speaker 1: some sort of natural ingredient even though it's it does
Speaker 1: the exact same thing to your body the lab isolated
Speaker 1: nitrite wood. Yeah, it is weird. You know, at one
Speaker 1: point we should do an episode on organ standards. I
Speaker 1: think we have, but we could revisit it for sure,
Speaker 1: did we. I'm I'm pretty sure we've talked about organics
Speaker 1: versus local. Um. Yeah, we we We've talked about it,
Speaker 1: but let's do it again. Well, I know the stuff
Speaker 1: we didn't cover because uh, Emily always has a problem
Speaker 1: with it in her with her business selling natural body
Speaker 1: products because people will say, like, this is organic soap
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Like people throw the word organic
Speaker 1: on something when it doesn't even apply. Sometimes just because
Speaker 1: it's a people will buy something if it says organic
Speaker 1: on it, or if it's not even certified organic. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can get away with it, you know, on on
Speaker 1: a smaller level, like a small business. Um. And then
Speaker 1: there was something else too, maybe we could roll in
Speaker 1: like all the food sort of labeling, like free range chickens.
Speaker 1: I remember when I worked for that chicken company, and
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned this years ago, but they I
Speaker 1: was at a free range farm and I was like,
Speaker 1: I thought these were free range, like they're all in there,
Speaker 1: and he was like, free range just means the gate
Speaker 1: is open basically. Yeah. I remember saying that before. They
Speaker 1: can leave, but they don't because this is where the
Speaker 1: food is, right. So you want to imagine chickens just
Speaker 1: roaming around the countryside, That's just not the case. I
Speaker 1: want my chickens forced out of there and made to
Speaker 1: walk around in the field for a while. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are some local Oh yeah, and we try to
Speaker 1: go to farmers markets and get local um meat that
Speaker 1: is like a genuine farm with chickens that are walking
Speaker 1: around and stuff like that. But anything you're you're getting
Speaker 1: like in a package of the grocery stores, you're probably
Speaker 1: being misled in some way. We'll have to take on
Speaker 1: meat processing or like that whole thing. I know eventually
Speaker 1: I've been avoiding it. Yeah, well, we're gonna run out
Speaker 1: of topics one day and that's going to be left.
Speaker 1: Uh should we talk about how these things are made
Speaker 1: before we take our break? Yes, and then also just
Speaker 1: want to re shout out to how it's made. Video
Speaker 1: on It's great five minutes. It is time I'll spent
Speaker 1: so and again you'll either say I'm there eating a
Speaker 1: hot dog again, or like, who cares? I love it
Speaker 1: a slurry tube. I feel like I'm in the middle.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely notice it didn't make me want to not
Speaker 1: eat a hot dog, but I wasn't like I gotta
Speaker 1: have a hot dog, right? Yeah? Sure, So the whole
Speaker 1: thing starts with grinding the meat. If it was mechanically separated,
Speaker 1: it's already some sort of paste or goo or batter um.
Speaker 1: But if it's not, if it's you know, trimmed beef
Speaker 1: or even trimmed pork, then it has to be ground
Speaker 1: and do a slurry. Because remember, the thing that differentiates
Speaker 1: hot dogs from sausages or other types of sausages is
Speaker 1: that it's ground up so finely that you can't differentiate
Speaker 1: one bit from another. That's right. So you've ground the
Speaker 1: stuff up, then you got to mix in all those
Speaker 1: ingredients and it goes into this huge industrial mixer. I
Speaker 1: love watching this stuff. Any industrial processes are fascinating to me,
Speaker 1: even when meat goo, yeah, because it's worth it when
Speaker 1: you get to that that hot dog shoot. Okay, there's
Speaker 1: a big payoff, uh, so that you know it's mixed
Speaker 1: together in these huge vats and this is where your
Speaker 1: spices they're dumping into these huge bags of salt and
Speaker 1: paprika and garlic powder and apparently, like some mustard powder,
Speaker 1: depends on where you are according to how it's made,
Speaker 1: Like different regions have different flavors they like, yeah, which
Speaker 1: makes you want to kind of do across country hot
Speaker 1: dog Doctor Original Tasting Tour. Yeah, well, if we ever
Speaker 1: get back on the road again, maybe we should make
Speaker 1: a point to eat a hot dog and every city.
Speaker 1: That's a good idea. I actually, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's a good idea or not, but it is a
Speaker 1: fine idea. Okay. Uh so this is mixing all that
Speaker 1: stuff together. Dave has it in here that ice is
Speaker 1: added because the blades generate heat. Um the video from
Speaker 1: how it's made, it looked like it was just cold water.
Speaker 1: But I imagine the water also mixes in those spices
Speaker 1: and keeps everything nice and juicy. Right, So, and then
Speaker 1: it was a lot of water, wasn't it. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a lot of water. I saw the reason that
Speaker 1: ballpark Frank's plump when you cook him is because they
Speaker 1: add even more water. And so that leftover water that
Speaker 1: they leave in that slurry, the hot dog slurry that
Speaker 1: gets kind of cooked in. When you heat it up,
Speaker 1: it turns into steam or water vapor, which expands in volume,
Speaker 1: which makes the volume of the hot dog itself expand
Speaker 1: too amazing. I don't know about that. What's up next?
Speaker 1: Chuck stuffing the case things? Maybe yep, you gotta get
Speaker 1: that emulsion. And this is where the you get, not
Speaker 1: the hot beef injection, you get the cold beef injection. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is probably uh cellulose casing. And then it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's tied off. It looks like a regular sausage.
Speaker 1: It's been it's in a big long link, long like
Speaker 1: it's all tied together with that casing and they're twisted
Speaker 1: up every would it say, like five and a quarter inches?
Speaker 1: Is I think standard? Um? It's not for the bunt links.
Speaker 1: I do too, but you know that they make them thinner.
Speaker 1: That's not the chubby version, it's the thin version. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just like it to match the length
Speaker 1: of the bunt. See why you want to start off
Speaker 1: with just bread? I know because I would like bread.
Speaker 1: And I even tend to pinch the un dogged parts
Speaker 1: of the bun off it. Yeah, pinch it and leave it.
Speaker 1: And if I'm really hard up, I might dip it
Speaker 1: in some leftover catchup and eat it afterward. My friend
Speaker 1: James from New Jersey would not eat the corners of
Speaker 1: his omelet. Isn't that weird? Yes? That he might be
Speaker 1: the only person who ever felt that way. He would
Speaker 1: cut one off and cut the other one off and
Speaker 1: eat the rest. Huh. I've never heard that one before.
Speaker 1: I never heard that. Um. All right, So you got
Speaker 1: it stuffed, um, then you smoke it, and you know
Speaker 1: what they're probably doing is adding some of that liquid smoke.
Speaker 1: But you're also going to get some smoke as you're
Speaker 1: cooking it, and they're curing it too. They're bathing it
Speaker 1: and basically like what amounts to a different type of
Speaker 1: brine that's that will cure it. And you know the
Speaker 1: difference between curing and cooking is they're both transforming meat
Speaker 1: into something that can be preserved, whereas preserved it's just
Speaker 1: cooking uses temperature and curing uses chemicals. But they both
Speaker 1: arrive at virtually the same thing, that's right. So then
Speaker 1: you're almost done, right you are? Then the fun stuff
Speaker 1: comes because most hot dogs, I think you said way earlier,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't sell them in casings any longer.
Speaker 1: They they prepare them and cook them in casings, but
Speaker 1: then they take the casings off, so it's like a
Speaker 1: machine that kind of cuts them, and then another part
Speaker 1: of the machine that steams them off, and then they
Speaker 1: come shooting out of that that last machine into into
Speaker 1: like these giants like trolleys, like a huge laundry trolley. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to watch, it really is. And if you're
Speaker 1: just grossed out, just fast forward to like the last
Speaker 1: probably forty forty seconds of that clip. You'll see and
Speaker 1: pretend their circus peanuts, which is way grosser than then meat.
Speaker 1: Go man, I have end a circus peanut and probably
Speaker 1: forty five years and I still remember exactly the texture
Speaker 1: and taste. Yeah, yeah, it hasn't changed. I'm sure. All right,
Speaker 1: So that's it. They get vacuum sealed and packaged, and
Speaker 1: you've got a hot dog on your hands, you do,
Speaker 1: and then you put it in your mouth and you say,
Speaker 1: my god, there's some delicious colon cancer. Should we take
Speaker 1: a break? I think we should, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about some of the history and where this
Speaker 1: name came from, because it's kind of weird if you
Speaker 1: stop and think about it. I want to learn about
Speaker 1: a terrosortic college act, how to take a perfect but
Speaker 1: with all about fractal get kiscon that's a little hun
Speaker 1: the Lizzie Border murders that they kind of all runs
Speaker 1: on the plane. Everything that we should know word up.
Speaker 1: Jerry took all right, So we did a little bit
Speaker 1: of a flip flop. We usually will do this history
Speaker 1: stuff first, but we did a different today. I think
Speaker 1: it's nice. It feels like a new jacket that makes
Speaker 1: you feel cool, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a magician's jacket. That's right. So, uh, you've heard him
Speaker 1: called Frankfurter's, which we mentioned briefly, and of course weener.
Speaker 1: We haven't said that word yet. Um. They both come
Speaker 1: from Germany, which is where the sausage comes from. Um, Frankfurt, Germany.
Speaker 1: They say, Hey, way back in seven we invented this thing,
Speaker 1: the Frankfurter sausage, and so call it a Frankfurter Vienna.
Speaker 1: He says, no, no, no, those American hot dogs you're
Speaker 1: eating they came from US and Vienna as vien uh
Speaker 1: in Europe, and veeners or Wieners is where that comes from. Right.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, did you. Yes? Okay, well you
Speaker 1: just know everything about hot dogs and bologny and all that.
Speaker 1: I've traveled in Germany and I have taste buds, so
Speaker 1: veeners a new Bologna was a hot dog. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start calling them that veeners and franc photos a vina.
Speaker 1: You're right, so Franco love how Dave abandons that he's
Speaker 1: like that? That matters not. What really matters is that
Speaker 1: these things eventually made their way to New York and
Speaker 1: that's where the whole thing really took off in earnest
Speaker 1: because yeah, Frankfort has been making hot dogs potentially since
Speaker 1: Fortune seven. Vienna has been making something similar since who
Speaker 1: knows when, and that's great, but they never took off.
Speaker 1: Like you would not call a vener or a Frankforter
Speaker 1: like the national dish of Germany or Austria, like you
Speaker 1: would call it the national dish of America, which suddenly
Speaker 1: sounds really sad now that I'm saying it out loud. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't walk, like, take your first visit to
Speaker 1: New York and go up to a card and say,
Speaker 1: could I have one of your fine German style veners? Right?
Speaker 1: They said, what are you talking about? And then yeah,
Speaker 1: now you wouldn't say that instead you'd say hot dog
Speaker 1: as you just said. But they did come from German
Speaker 1: pushcart vendors uh in the eighteen sixties in the Bowery.
Speaker 1: That sounds delicious. It says in the Bowery, they were
Speaker 1: served on milk rolls with mustard and sauerkroud. Even though
Speaker 1: I don't like mustard or sauerkroud, that still sounds good
Speaker 1: to me. I know you don't like mustard ser crow too, huh. Although, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't like any vinegar based to anything. To you,
Speaker 1: not a lot of vinegar based things. Fair enough. You
Speaker 1: don't like about sarer crowd it's too sour. It is
Speaker 1: very sour. It's really lives up to its name. That's right. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's where the whole thing started. I think by the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties there were pushed carts in New York. They
Speaker 1: eventually made their way to Coney Island. Um. There was
Speaker 1: a guy named Charles Feltman who was the first Coney
Speaker 1: Island hot dog king in eighteen seventy one. Um, and
Speaker 1: then famous Nathan's or Nathan Nathan's famous Sorry I got
Speaker 1: it Backwards was established by a guy named Nathan hans Burka.
Speaker 1: I think I said it right. Um in Coney Island,
Speaker 1: which Coney Allen became kind of like the the capital
Speaker 1: of hot doggery in America, especially at the turn of
Speaker 1: the last century. Yeah, So here's where it gets a
Speaker 1: little weird because when you think of a cony, you
Speaker 1: think of a chili dog. Um. But I did a
Speaker 1: little bit of digging because to me, you want to
Speaker 1: make a hot dog great, put some chili and cheese
Speaker 1: on it. Yes, just basically just go to the varsity.
Speaker 1: That's how you make a hot dog great. Like I
Speaker 1: love a chili dog. I love I love a chili dog,
Speaker 1: chili cheese dog, no less with on top, and some
Speaker 1: fritos happened to fall in there. I'm fine with it.
Speaker 1: I don't seek it out. Um. So Chili's appeared in
Speaker 1: San Antonio in the eighteen seventies, and Coney Islands were
Speaker 1: the names of restaurants, not a specific chain or whatever,
Speaker 1: but like these Greek immigrants in like the Midwest and
Speaker 1: specifically Michigan would open up what they called Coney Islands
Speaker 1: and there were these restaurants where they were Greek diners,
Speaker 1: but they also sold these chili dogs. It was like
Speaker 1: a chili sauce, no beans supposedly, although I'm that I
Speaker 1: love beans in my chili, so I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: But it's just a it's a little much with the
Speaker 1: Bonton frankly the beans okay, and the chili yeah, well no,
Speaker 1: just the beans in the bun. It's just too much.
Speaker 1: It's much better with just just meat based chili. No
Speaker 1: beans for me in my opinion. But I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna yuck anybody's hot dog yams. Do you
Speaker 1: like a Cincinnati chili? Didn't they have cinnamon in it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That we kind of do our sort of like that,
Speaker 1: like sometimes some chocolates and cinnamon. Yes, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Skyline chili, yeah, I don't know they've ever had Skyline
Speaker 1: crazy enough, but cinnamon and chili is good. I think
Speaker 1: in Toledo you would have had some Skyline chili. There
Speaker 1: was even a Skyline Chili restaurant, and I didn't eat it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I love it. It's good stuff.
Speaker 1: But the all of this to say is that even
Speaker 1: though Nathan's and Coney Island is known for chili dogs, um,
Speaker 1: Michigan and Detroit is very uh not abrasive, but defensive
Speaker 1: about the fact that they say we started the chili
Speaker 1: dog and like it's verified it came from Michigan, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a bit of a brain buster. But the
Speaker 1: Coney Dog is a Michigan creation, simple as that. That's right.
Speaker 1: What about baseball games? Apparently there was a guy in St.
Speaker 1: Louis who bought the St. Louis Brown's baseball team in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties and also started selling hot dogs there,
Speaker 1: and they it was just a match made in heaven
Speaker 1: from that that time on. Alright, so all of this
Speaker 1: is great, we're having a good time. We know about
Speaker 1: Frankfurter's and veeners, but why are they called hot dogs?
Speaker 1: Josh oh well, allowing to explain chuck, because I just
Speaker 1: so happened to know this. So there's this idea that
Speaker 1: the German immigrants who brought hot dogs over with them
Speaker 1: and started selling them and became kind of celebrated in
Speaker 1: places like New York um also brought over docks and
Speaker 1: dogs with them, And supposedly, anybody who knows anything about
Speaker 1: hot dog history knows that the association between docksins and
Speaker 1: hot dogs were made right off of the bath. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's kind of phase one of this legend, but that
Speaker 1: seems to be totally accurate. So it's possible that they
Speaker 1: called them hot docksins for a time. Yeah, weird name
Speaker 1: it is, but I mean, you can understand where like
Speaker 1: a docksin looks like a little sausage with legs and
Speaker 1: long ears. Well, and there's also well we'll get to that. Um.
Speaker 1: There was also a cartoonist going in a different direction
Speaker 1: from the New York Journal. Well this is step two, yeah,
Speaker 1: this part two. His name was Tad Dorgan, great name,
Speaker 1: and he as and this story is by all accounts
Speaker 1: not true. But he says, in nineteen hundred, how was
Speaker 1: it a baseball game at the old Polo Grounds in
Speaker 1: New York City? And uh, there was a vendor saying,
Speaker 1: get you docks and sausages while they're red hot. And
Speaker 1: he said he got a mental image of a naxt
Speaker 1: Well docks and dog in a bun, and he thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's cute, and so he made a cartoon of it
Speaker 1: and drew that and called it hot dogs because he
Speaker 1: supposedly didn't know how to spell docks and And that
Speaker 1: is the apocryphal story that a lot of people you
Speaker 1: will see online have printed this stuff. But by all
Speaker 1: accounts that is not true at all. Because in the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, twenty years before that, at Yale University, these students,
Speaker 1: little John Hodgmans, we're calling them, Uh, these push cards
Speaker 1: dog wagons. One was called the Kennel Club and they
Speaker 1: and it was even in print. The word hot dog
Speaker 1: was found in e and the Yale Record a good
Speaker 1: five years before Ted Dorgan's story takes place, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: Ted Dorgan, big fat liar. Yale students apparently the ones
Speaker 1: who coined the term hot dog. And there's this idea
Speaker 1: that they were it was a play on the hot
Speaker 1: docks and probably, but there also seems to be some
Speaker 1: evidence that it was a um kind of a sly
Speaker 1: nod to the idea that there was potentially dog meat
Speaker 1: in these sausages, because they were made by immigrants after all,
Speaker 1: and this was Yale, so there was a certain amount
Speaker 1: of xenophobia even though they were enjoying these delicious hot dogs.
Speaker 1: And so the Yale students said, we're gonna call these
Speaker 1: hot dogs because who knows, maybe there's dog meat in them? Right?
Speaker 1: That is part three, I guess, so I would say
Speaker 1: to be okay, uh. And then you know, of course
Speaker 1: people are like, well did they really eat dog? In Germany?
Speaker 1: And apparently in the at times in Germany when things
Speaker 1: would get really bad, uh, there are verified reports that
Speaker 1: they would eat dog meat. Uh and in a very
Speaker 1: bad slang term for a German immigrants sometimes we're dog
Speaker 1: eaters back in the day. Uh. And that probably did
Speaker 1: contribute to the name somewhat. But there there is nothing
Speaker 1: on record or any truth whatsoever. Um two dogs hot
Speaker 1: dogs actually being made from dog No, there was never
Speaker 1: that was never like a trend or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It just seems to have been an unhappy coincidence between
Speaker 1: Germany going through some hard times around the time that
Speaker 1: hot dogs were introduced to the larger republic in America. Yes,
Speaker 1: so all those things kind of came together to form
Speaker 1: in Yale students heads the idea of hot dogs. No
Speaker 1: ted organ Yale students. Yeah, And apparently early on hot
Speaker 1: dogs were like people love them, But like you said,
Speaker 1: there was xenophobias. So there was also the notion that
Speaker 1: what is in this from the beginning, what kind of
Speaker 1: mystery meat could be in there? Is? Are they dirty?
Speaker 1: Should we eat these? Upton Sinclair certainly didn't help later
Speaker 1: on with his book The Jungle Um. But apparently that's
Speaker 1: why Nathan hunt Fuka of Nathan's famous early on would
Speaker 1: um have signs that say like no horsemeat? He made
Speaker 1: his employees where white smocks early on, that was their
Speaker 1: early uniform was because it made him look he thought
Speaker 1: like more clean or more like a doctor even right.
Speaker 1: And he also build his hot dogs his kosher style,
Speaker 1: which was not the same as kosher. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: just kind of a playoff on this idea that kosher
Speaker 1: meat was much cleaner because it was um slaughtered and
Speaker 1: raised and slaughtered and and packaged under the eagle eye
Speaker 1: of a kosher inspector and so therefore it had far
Speaker 1: less adulterents or contaminants in it. And so he kind
Speaker 1: of build his hot dogs his kosher style. They kind
Speaker 1: of also further that idea that he had very clean meat,
Speaker 1: clean hot dogs. Yeah, so you can't get kosher style,
Speaker 1: you can. Yeah, we knew. I feel like, if we
Speaker 1: haven't done a whole episode on kosher, I'm surprised, but
Speaker 1: we should definitely do one on that. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: are much stricter guidelines associated with it. And you're never
Speaker 1: gonna find pork and a kosher hot dog. Um, it's
Speaker 1: either gonna be before it could be poultry, but never
Speaker 1: pork because that ain't kosher. Um. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's separate, like Hebrew National has very famously kosher
Speaker 1: hot dogs, and people feel like they just kind of
Speaker 1: taste differently. But I think that's just because they're different brands,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, when you say something like, let's we
Speaker 1: should do something on kosher one day, that immediately all
Speaker 1: I can think of is like, sure, I'd love to
Speaker 1: get a bunch of stuff wrong, right exactly. That just
Speaker 1: seems like one of those that we would mess up
Speaker 1: in some way. Man, do you remember our episode on
Speaker 1: the Pope. I don't think we've ever gotten more pushback
Speaker 1: for an episode than that one. I wipe that one
Speaker 1: from my memory. Banks. Yeah, it was. It was worse
Speaker 1: than soccer, I think. Um, I guess we should talk
Speaker 1: about a few of the famous kinds of hot dogs.
Speaker 1: You got your Chicago dog, got the poppy seed roll,
Speaker 1: get yellow mustard relish, chopped onion pickles, tomato slices, little
Speaker 1: celery salt, got that Michigan coney, The Mexican dog that
Speaker 1: you can get in Los Angeles wrapped in bacon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Sonoran dog which they might deep fry. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: it looks lovely on a in a picture. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean it's a lot they put cream on it. Um,
Speaker 1: it does look pretty good. There's one. Um. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize this, but Atlanta does kind of have its own
Speaker 1: version of a hot dog. Did you know that I
Speaker 1: saw this from David? That a thing? It is, now
Speaker 1: that I think about it, I had. I never realized
Speaker 1: that it was an Atlanta thing, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: Southern thing in Atlanta. Thing that put cole Slaw usually
Speaker 1: kind of sweet, very Mayo heavy or Mayo forward cole
Speaker 1: Slaw on a dog that istill delicious. But apparently I
Speaker 1: suspect it may have come from the scrambled Dog. I
Speaker 1: found this on Mental Flaws. Um. There's something called the
Speaker 1: scrambled Dog from Inglewood Pharmacy in Columbus, Georgia, and it's
Speaker 1: all kinds of messed up. It's cut up into pieces,
Speaker 1: bathed in a bowl of chili with pickles on top,
Speaker 1: oyster crackers, cheese, and then cole Slaw. So I suspect
Speaker 1: somebody from Atlanta went down to Columbus and said this
Speaker 1: would be great if it was just cole Slaw and
Speaker 1: the hot dog. And then that's where the Atlanta version
Speaker 1: of the hot dog came from. Wait what else was
Speaker 1: on there? Chili, pickles, oyster crackers, cheese, and then cole slaw.
Speaker 1: Some people even could catch up on it, which I
Speaker 1: just can't even begin to imagine that. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: almost a chuck special. But I just don't dig the pickles.
Speaker 1: But a perfect hot dog to me as the bun
Speaker 1: the dog, mayonnaise baby, and then put on the chili,
Speaker 1: and then cole slaw and then cheese and then cole
Speaker 1: slaw on top of that, and I can just have
Speaker 1: one of those, because that's a lot of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's quite a bit. But I now want to
Speaker 1: make a pilgrimage to Englewood Pharmacy and try their scrambled dog.
Speaker 1: Uh So, recently, a few weeks ago in real time,
Speaker 1: and article came out on the news wire from a
Speaker 1: study at the University of Michigan that says a hot
Speaker 1: dog will shorten your life by thirty six minutes. One
Speaker 1: single hot dog. Yeah, it made it was big, big
Speaker 1: news because everyone was like, what thirty six minutes? They
Speaker 1: did a big study on all kinds of foods and
Speaker 1: like quantified literally how many minutes they will add or
Speaker 1: subtract from your life. And they came up with twenty
Speaker 1: seven minutes just for just a naked hot dog. But
Speaker 1: thirty six minutes, I think with you know, a hot
Speaker 1: dog with some trimmings on a bun. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know that was the study. It was out of Michigan.
Speaker 1: They know they're hot dogs. I did some math and like,
Speaker 1: it's it's not a big deal. Like if you're eating
Speaker 1: twenty hot dogs a year, yeah, it still sounds like
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's not is if you do the
Speaker 1: math like twenty times that it's like you're talking like
Speaker 1: eight or ten hours um a year, and if that's
Speaker 1: like ten years, you're talking eighty to hours. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I just did a little bit of math, and if
Speaker 1: I eat forty hot dogs a year, that's a day
Speaker 1: I shave off of my life. Twenty four hours every
Speaker 1: year something dog take in. But let's say you do
Speaker 1: that for over a thirty year period, you're talking about
Speaker 1: like a month of your life. Would you rather beat
Speaker 1: hot dogs and kick off a month sooner? No? Because
Speaker 1: when I eat those hot dogs, I always feel guilty.
Speaker 1: They're usually cold out of the package. I'm just chomping
Speaker 1: them down to like eat something. No from now on
Speaker 1: I vowed before you and every stuff you should know
Speaker 1: a listener that if I eat a hot dog, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a damn good hot dog, like a scrambled
Speaker 1: dog or a slaw dog or something that's worth losing
Speaker 1: thirty six minutes of my life over. Thank you, University
Speaker 1: of Michigan. Now I'm just picturing you, like in the
Speaker 1: dark and in the middle of the night, like just
Speaker 1: cramming a braw hot dog in your mouth. Forgot naked
Speaker 1: except for my whitey tidies. Um. But as our hot
Speaker 1: dogs bad for you, obviously a lot of sodium. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like any kind of processed meat. It's
Speaker 1: not great for you. But in moderation you're you're okay, yes,
Speaker 1: unless you're a vegetarian or vegan. And you now have
Speaker 1: no hair attached your head as you pulled it all
Speaker 1: out listening to this episode. Correct, you got anything else
Speaker 1: about hot dogs? Oh? Boy, nothing else? But I really
Speaker 1: I think you actually do have some hot dogs upstairs. Well,
Speaker 1: go shape thirty six minutes off your life and see
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed it. You know, I get those organic
Speaker 1: turkey dogs, though for my kid they're not really organic.
Speaker 1: I'll bet they say un cured and organic and they're not.
Speaker 1: I'll bet look it says celery powder on there, and
Speaker 1: that's what it's. It's just a scam. Chuck, You're being scammed.
Speaker 1: I know. Um. How do they taste though? Are they good? Well,
Speaker 1: they're they're great. I don't mind a turkey dog. I
Speaker 1: think they taste good. Oh yeah, no, that's what I
Speaker 1: usually eat. Two are turkey dogs, for sure. Know I
Speaker 1: meant for the organic part or being uncured. That's what
Speaker 1: I mean. Okay, Now I think I'll be for the
Speaker 1: worst of all I do. I think they taste weird.
Speaker 1: And I don't think a hot dog should be made
Speaker 1: of all beef. I think it either has to be
Speaker 1: a turkey dog or it should have pork in it. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I don't eat pork, so I just eat the
Speaker 1: turkey dogs. Hey, I respect your point of view. Okay, Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: since Chuck said he respects my point of view, that
Speaker 1: is going to roll us nicely into the listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read parts of two males, uh listener males.
Speaker 1: This is from both Liz mckeller and Jason Marcella after
Speaker 1: our Statue of Liberty episode we were talking about going
Speaker 1: up there to that the crown, and they were both like,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to have an experience straight from hell,
Speaker 1: to do so does not sound like any kind of
Speaker 1: fun at all. Yeah. Um, I'll read some of Jason's here.
Speaker 1: He said, I was one of the quote lucky ones
Speaker 1: who did that death march back in the late eighties
Speaker 1: when my family toured New York City. It was so horrible.
Speaker 1: I still remember it so vividly. You wait in line
Speaker 1: for the ferry from Manhattan, then to get to the
Speaker 1: on you've gotta wait in line to get into the base.
Speaker 1: Eventually you're waiting in all these lines. You get to
Speaker 1: the elevator and make it to the top of the base.
Speaker 1: This is where the smart people stopped their tour. The
Speaker 1: rest of us cattle started the miserable climb up a
Speaker 1: narrow spiral staircase. It rises through Liberty's body. Her body
Speaker 1: is essentially hollow, and it looks cool for the first
Speaker 1: two minutes. Uh. The stairs are steep, single file, you
Speaker 1: can't see where they end, and there are mere inches
Speaker 1: between you and the people in front and back of you.
Speaker 1: There's no air conditioning, so you are essentially inside a
Speaker 1: giant easy bake oven for an hour or so. The
Speaker 1: payoff for all that climbing. You walk across inside her
Speaker 1: crown and see that the windows are smaller than a
Speaker 1: sheet of paper and you don't even have time to
Speaker 1: look through them because crush of people behind you is
Speaker 1: constantly in motion, and soon you were going back down
Speaker 1: the stairs. Uh. That is from Jason. Liz also says
Speaker 1: this um the show complimented the stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: history class episode on Emma Lazarus. Let's go listen to that.
Speaker 1: But Liz says she's been to the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 1: twice and the second time they got tickets to go
Speaker 1: on the Crown and said this, I do not recommend
Speaker 1: doing this in winter because you need a heavy coat
Speaker 1: out on the walking area. But it still ends up
Speaker 1: being hot. So you've got that coat, Oh you get
Speaker 1: to carry it around? Well, I guess so, but then
Speaker 1: you've got this huge coat. It's like that New York
Speaker 1: City problem, Like everywhere you go in the winter. Once
Speaker 1: you get in the Crown, it is tiny and hot
Speaker 1: even in the winter, very little room, and there's a
Speaker 1: park ranger. They're keeping everybody moving. They do keep some
Speaker 1: of those little windows open at all times for air
Speaker 1: circulation and have a stand up fan. But it did
Speaker 1: no good. Uh And Liz actually said, I didn't have
Speaker 1: you know, you can't stop. So she said, I managed
Speaker 1: to get some decent photos by sheer luck because I
Speaker 1: was just kind of clicking and walking. But the pictures
Speaker 1: actually turned out really great. There was some really cool
Speaker 1: artistic photos, like looking up through the body and in
Speaker 1: the crown itself. And uh, that's just pointing out that
Speaker 1: to say that sometimes just dashing off quick photos you
Speaker 1: can get some really great images if you're not overthinking it.
Speaker 1: So that was the point of these two listener mails.
Speaker 1: That was the point of the end of that second
Speaker 1: part of the one listener mail. Gotcha and that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm just encouraging amateur photography. Basically, go out there and
Speaker 1: snap stuff. Don't everthink it. And uh so listen Jason
Speaker 1: both say, don't do it. Okay, that's great, Thanks Liz,
Speaker 1: Thanks Jason for setting everybody straight. I may have ended
Speaker 1: up trying it one day, and I'm glad that I
Speaker 1: never will. Now exactly if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with this, like Liz or Jason did, you can
Speaker 1: you can send us an email and we will be
Speaker 1: eternally grateful. Send it to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H