Hot dogs may bring back childhood memories of fairs, and therefore fun, and they're undoubtedly a tasty treat to be enjoyed with layers of ketchup and mustard. But how tasty would you find them if you knew exactly how they were made? TV series How It's Made has shown the process hot dogs go through to be made into the sausage-shaped treat that's loved by many, and the reaction has been mixed.
Did you know that "traditional hot dogs" are made from a mix of pork, beef, and chicken? The cuts that they're made from are called "trimmings", which are "pieces of meat left over from cutting steaks or pork chops."
"The trimmings are ground in the same way that butchers grind up hamburger meat", the voiceover shared, as a mound of grey-ish looking meat passes through a grinder. Then "processed chicken trimmings are added to the ground meat, followed by food starch, salt, and other flavourings. These flavourings vary depending on where the hot dogs are going to be sold."
Then "water is added to the mix, and everything is blended together in a big vat. Corn syrup adds a dash of sweetness." The mixture is now an orangey-brown shade, and is looking mushier than ever, as even more water is added in to make the hot dogs "juicer."
"Another machine then purees the meat batter into a fine emulsion and vacuums out any air. Long rolls of cellulose tubing are loaded into the stuffing machine. It pumps the meat puree into these casings, twisting it every five and a quarter inches - the length of one hot dog."
They then shared a fun fact, saying: "It takes just 35 seconds to make a chain of hot dogs that would span a soccer field, twice. Then, three of those hot dog chains are linked together to make an even longer chain and they're loaded several at a time into another machine, which drapes the hot dogs onto moving racks."
The hot dogs are then put through a "liquid smoke shower and into an oven with several cooking zones." This adds flavour. Then, once they're out of the oven, they're drenched in "cold salty water" to chill them ready for packaging. Then, the casings are removed by a machine that peels them, and then they are checked by an inspector to ensure there are "no defects with the dogs."
Around 300,000 hot dogs an hour are produced at the factory where the video was filmed, which is almost two and a half million per shift.
Someone took to Twitter to write: "EWW. My mum just made me watch a video on how the hot dog meat is made. Grim!" But in the comments of the YouTube video, some people said that it wasn't as bad as they were expecting, with one writing: "People say you'll never eat it if you see how hot dogs are made. This is actually better than I thought it would be."
Someone defiantly commented: "Not only will I continue to eat hot dogs, I'm eating one while watching this", whilst another said: "Slimy yet satisfying."
"We have to make the most of the animals we consume. This is one way we're making it happen", a YouTuber reasoned, but someone questioned: "Wtf is meat batter?" Another person said: "I'll never eat a store-bought hot dog ever again but I'll eat homemade hot dogs."
Did you know how hot dogs were made? Let us know in the comments.
