Hot dogs are the perfect summer meal, easy to cook and to satisfy the palate. These quick meal fixes contain several different ingredients and potential chemicals. You may already be aware of this and choose to forego the thought when chowing down, but a new study from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has shed some light on the sausage fest—indicating food adulteration.
For starters, food adulteration is food that is considered impure. According to the study, there have been several global cases over the past years where adultered food has caused serious illness and even death. When it comes to hot dogs, there has been testing done on the authenticity of its meat by sampling DNA and looking for certain markers.
Researchers in the study developed a technique to look for short DNA strands from beef, buffalo, and pork in hot dogs. Results indicated from their findings that DNA sequences were stable under food processing conditions and that hot dogs labeled as “beef” also contained buffalo meat.