Phytochemicals in produce seem to be ignored by the experts.

Well, I just looked up Ballpark Beef Franks (I’ll ignore the weirdly homoerotic subtext of their ads) and here are the ingredients:

BEEF, WATER, CORN SYRUP, SALT, POTASSIUM LACTATE, FLAVORINGS, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), SODIUM NITRITE, EXTRACTIVES OF PAPRIKA.

Here’s the Morningstar ingredient list:

Wheat gluten, water, corn syrup solids, salt, dextrose, egg whites solids. Contains 2% or less of carrageenan, hydrolyzed corn, soy, and wheat protein, brown sugar, natural flavors from non-meat sources, torula yeast, spices, soy protein isolate, onion powder, garlic powder, natural smoke flavor, hydrolyzed torula and brewer’s yeast protein, cellulose gum, soy fiber, autolyzed yeast extract, paprika for color, xanthan gum, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, potassium chloride, red #3 and blue #1 for color.

The egg whites probalby really help with the protein.

You know, one thing I didn’t realize before when I got the data off the USDA database, 153 of the 188 calories from the beef frank are from FAT. That’s an awful lot.

Yeah, I know, but it sounds more gross than asking how much of it is fat. (17g??? What, do they inject extra fat into the mix?) Just a little hyperbole there, a reaction being fed a steady diet of hot dogs, fish sticks and frozen pizza throughout my developing years. I can’t look at a hot dog now without wanting to incinerate it.

The hotdogs in this “experiement” (SFW, but pretty nasty nonetheless) hold up surprisingly well until some unwitting and no-doubt now dead creature made off with them.

Stranger

Hey, I wasn’t trying to defend eating hot dogs - so far as I know, no beneficial anti-cancer properties are found in pig anus. My own feelings that unprocessed food is better apply just as much to those things as to veggie dogs. It’s just a personal opinion - I find it faintly disturbing to fashion a parody of a meat product out of soy beans. It just doesn’t strike me as harmonious with many of the attitudes of the natural health folks.

But then I always say that I’m a vegetarian because I don’t want to eat meat.

Oh, so that’s what gives it its characteristic amorphous meat flavor. :smiley:

They might as well just stuff some lard into a tube and sell it. Call 'em…Lard Franks. But I guess you’d need something to bind the lard together so it doesn’t all drip out when grilling. I suppose that’s what the corn syrup is for. ::shudder::

Stranger

You guys eat the wrong hot dogs. I saw a film of how Vienna makes its dogs and it was hardly disgusting at all. No snouts or anuses, just large chunks of dead cow that could’ve been trimmed of fat a little better. But then they are kosher, and I think that might have a lot to do with the quality of their ingredients.

Those dogs don’t Shine!

Ok, total thread hijack but I was looking for nutrition info on the Vienna franks to see how they stack up and found this USDA page about hot dogs.

Ick.

Hmmmm, couldn’t find a Vienna nutrition page but I did find one for Hebrew National Franks which I would bet would be similar.

Hebrew Nationa Beef Frank (49g):

Calories 150
Calories from fat 130
Fat 14 g
Protein 6 g
Fiber 0g

That’s still an awful lot of fat. They must use really fatty parts of the cow in hot dogs.

You need to go back a page and check Hebrew National’s 97% Fat Free Beef Franks (49g):

Calories 45
Calories from fat 15
Fat 1.5 g
Protein 6 g
Fiber 0 g

Less fat than a bun!

Didja notice how they made it so low fat?

Ingredients:
Beef, water, modified food starch*, salt, hydrolyzed soy protein (bolding mine), spice, paprika, potassium chloride, natural flavorings, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite.
*Ingredient in excess of amount permitted in regular beef franks.

All this discussion about mechanically seperated meat and hot dog constituants is making me want to eat…a nice big bowl of quinoa with sauteed mushrooms and zucchini. :slight_smile:

Stranger

Ok, the phytochemicals I am most interested in are:

  1. The one that gives the item its color,
  2. The phytochemical that is of the greatest quantity in a given item
  3. The most commonly found phytochemical(s) from item to item (most popular).

These would naturally, logically be the ones we would like to focus on, correct? I am sure the ones that fit these parameters have been studied extensively…