Okay. I’ve heard a lot of rumours over the years and I was just wondering… What’s really in a hot dog? I just thought it was time to really let the world know whats going on with meat products these days.
Trust me, you don’t want to know. There are some things that the world will never be ready for.
(86-year-old strippers and hot dog ingredients are two of these)
Banned SDMB posters. Now you know.
This propaganda might get us started on to some serious answers.
I once saw a show on PBS about Hot Dogs. It was truly fascinating. Honest. Now I MUST go to the Rupp Hut in Clifton, New Jersey and get one of their deep fried hot dogs. I’ll take my own paramedic.
Oh, yes- I saw that with my mom one night on PBS. The Rupp Hut looks good (I’d get the Cremator-a deep-fried-until-burst-open-and crunchy dog.
What shocked and amazed us, though, was the portion where they were in the factory and showed the extruder. Folks, this thing was shooting hot dogs like a belt-fed machine gun. Imagine the havoc one could wreak.
In re the OP, though, kosher and all-beef dogs are bascially utility grade beef, salt, preservative and spices. Non-kosher and cheap dogs may have cereal filler or be mixed with pork, mechanically-separated chicken, etc. “White hots”, an upstate NY speciality, are veal or veal and pork.
Hot dogs get a bad rap, and that’s too bad in my opinion. The good ones can be really good if cooked and served properly, and even the bad ones can be cut into mac n’cheese for comfort food or a cheap dinner.
Now cheap chorizo, that’s some nasty stuff.
I’ve got to agree with False_God. Hot dogs get a bad rap; they (good ones at least) are made of meat and other ingredients, not anything scary or disgusting. The cliche about hot dogs being made from “lips and a–holes” (as I’ve seen in numerous movies, shows, and comedy routines) is stale. I rank it up there with the old “I can’t set my VCR; it keeps blinking 12:00” and “Hey, isn’t airline food awful” on the overused-joke-fodder-o-meter.
(Even if they were made from lips and assholes, I’d still eat them. They’re delicious, if you get good ones. Fenway Franks rule.) 
WOW! That doesn’t narrow it down much 
it’s the OTHER INGREIENTS that scare me
“Ingredients” even
before i travelled on plane, i heard a lot of airplane food jokes, i thought it was just some big thing they made up, and it was a big joke. After io travelled on an airplane (and ate an airplane meal) i understood those jokes.
Before i knew what was in hotdogs, i saw a lot of hotdog jokes as to what is inside of them, because i didnt really know i just laughed it off. i have not eaten a hot dog since i found out what was inside a hotdog, not ONE.
as i understand they are made from the scraps of meat that are usually thrown away, all the insides and the stuff you would usually feed to an animal.
oh and one last thing.
If they are putting cow intenstines and cow liver in your hot dog, they can still call it BEEF.
OK, maybe the “other ingredients” was poorly-worded on my part. I meant, of course, spices and such.
Originally posted by RAWisSYDNEY *
before i travelled on plane, i heard a lot of airplane food jokes, i thought it was just some big thing they made up, and it was a big joke. After io travelled on an airplane (and ate an airplane meal) i understood those jokes.
Maybe I’ve just been on the wrong airlines, then. I’ve admittedly only been on planes fewer than ten times, but I’ve never had anything disgusting to eat. Virgin Atlantic fed me quite a good meal, in fact, the last time I traveled.
**
Before i knew what was in hotdogs, i saw a lot of hotdog jokes as to what is inside of them, because i didnt really know i just laughed it off. i have not eaten a hot dog since i found out what was inside a hotdog, not ONE.*
First, where did you “find out” what was in a hot dog? Did you take the guided tour at the Oscar Meyer plant? Second, even if some disgusting information was turned up (which I still don’t think would be true), how would that make the hot dog any less delicious?
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as i understand they are made from the scraps of meat that are usually thrown away, all the insides and the stuff you would usually feed to an animal.
**
a.) If they are “usually thrown away,” how did they make the hot dogs the last time? Did they just say one day, “Hey, you know that stuff we usually throw away every other day? Today, let’s put it in hot dogs!”
b.) Geez, the American Indians always get praised for using every part of the animal.
What, you never ate liver? What’s wrong with that?
okay nineiron, i dont like being picked on so let me start off.
firstly, i didnt exactly ‘find out’ rather than was told what hotdogs are made of.
and secondly, knowing what something is can sometimes make it taste different, at least thats what your brain is telling you. At school one day a kid gave about 5 people (including me) a pieces of meat, he told us to put it in our mouths and swollow it, which we did. He then told us it was pigs tounge, me being a skeptic from the beginning didnt even swallow the meat, rather than put it on the top of my mouth. When i heard it was pigs tounge i took it our and washed my mouth out.
As it turns out is was just ordinary salami, but since at the time we “knew” it was pigs tounge thats what we were tasting
I once visited a slaughter house and the stuff they ship out to the meat pie and sausage roll companies is not pretty. Think of every good piece of steak you have ever had and then think of the stuff that would be left over and hey presto we have a filling.
I have almost gone completely of processed meat altogether (apart from ‘high grade’ mince meat)
I wasn’t picking on you; sorry if it sounded that way.
Maybe I’m just not as squeamish as some people. Lots of times, as I’ve been enjoying some meat-containing product, someone has come up to me and said something along the lines of, “If you knew where that came from, you wouldn’t eat it.” (This applies to hot dogs as well as, say, veal.) I never even blink, continue eating my meal, and explain that when your father is a butcher (like mine was), you do know where meat comes from.
IIRC, William Poundstone’s book Biggest Secrets says a little about this. It’s true that hot dogs do utilize unusual, possibly “Ewww”-inducing cuts of meat. But on the other hand, the whole point of sausages is to help use up cuts of meat that are too small and (possibly) off-putting to be eaten any other way. Hot dogs also reportedly contain very high quantities of water, fat, and sodium nitrates, all of which wouldn’t be desirablke even if the dog were made primarily of sirloin. Lastly, hot dogs contain truly odd spices (cinnamon, for one. I also hear they’ve got sugar). Horror stories notwithstanding, if this stuff really goes into hot dogs I’d still have a severe “What!!?” reaction.
I don’t eat hot dogs as much as I used to – my doctor advised against nitrate-laden meats long ago, but now that I have an almost 4-year-old daughter I catch the overflow, or have limited choices at times. So I still eat 'em. I just try not to think about the contents too much.
I like bovine filtration units, but the filtration units of domestic fowl are great when they’re encased in the ground reproductive units of a certain type of grass and then treated with heat by imersion in the liquid obtained from the reproductive units of corn or canola. Mmmmmm!
When I was a kid I used to sail every weekend at the San Diego Navy Sailing Club. They had great polish sausage at the cafeteria. Here’s how it’s done:
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Slice a polish sausage laterally a little more than half way through along the length of the sausage at about one-inch (or less) intervals. Be careful not to cut all the way through. Turn the sausage over and slice in the same fashion between the other slices.
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Drop into hot oil and boil until it is dark-ish.
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Serve on a hot dog bun with mayonaise and fresh chopped white onions.
I’d have one of those and a cup of hot chocolate before sailing. I don’t sail anymore, but I do occasionally fry up a polish sausage. Mmmmm, tasty!
One of my coworkers is convinced that hot dogs contain worms, and no argument can change her mind. Depressing.