You may want to think twice when deciding what to devour at a baseball game.
Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health have found that eating a single hot dog could take 36 minutes off your life.
In their study, published this month in the journal Nature Food, they looked at 5,853 foods in the US diet and measured their effects in minutes of healthy life gained or lost.
The research, which also addressed environmental impacts, found that substituting 10% of daily caloric intake from beef and processed meats with a mix of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood could reduce one's dietary carbon footprint by a third and allow people to gain 48 minutes of healthy life per day.
"The urgency of dietary changes to improve human health and the environment is clear," said Olivier Jolliet, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at UM SPH and senior author of the paper. "Our findings demonstrate that small, targeted substitutions offer a feasible and powerful strategy to achieve significant health and environmental benefits without requiring dramatic dietary shifts."
The findings are a direct shot at Hebrew National, which began producing kosher frankfurters in 1905. Its production methods met higher standards than were required by law, leading to their famous advertising slogan “We Answer to a Higher Authority.”