Critique: The All American hot dog!

Why does this look like a very fucked up vagina?

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs a year - more than twice the retail sales figures. That works out to about 70 hot dogs per person each year. Hot dogs are served in 95 percent of homes in the United States.

That is one heck of a boatload of dawgs! (For myself, I think that the total would be a much more conservative rate of consumption... maybe 68 hot dogs a year). Whatever the actual count, I thought to examine this very popular pastime in a bit more detail!

Right off the bat, let it be known that (like eggs), there are many variations you can eat out there; you have all sorts of meat wieners combined with many kinds of buns which are slathered with more crap than I could ever recount here. For this review, I decided to concentrate on your average run of the mill dog and bun! Here's a list of what I used for this post...

A disclaimer: This particular combination of ingredients was not the best a health conscious person could buy, nor was it the worst. (It was the kind of stuff I was able to easily purchase at my local Country Mart located in Forsyth Missouri).

I decided not to add anything about taste as that would be a waste of time. If you do not like to enjoy a good hot dog, you are very likely beyond the administrations of medical science....

What's actually in a common wiener?

All hot dogs (those that are sold commercially in the US) are cured and cooked sausages that consist of mainly pork, beef, chicken and turkey or a combination of meat and poultry. Meats used in hot dogs come from the muscle of the animal and looks much like what you buy in the grocer's case. Other ingredients include water, curing agents and spices, such as garlic, salt, sugar, ground mustard, nutmeg, coriander and white pepper. And that don't sound too bad... [Rumors that some dogs contain ground up eyeballs, beaks and other sordid and sick animal body parts. Not true, those are only sold to some West Coast consumers!]

Calories per gram!

After doing much research, I determined that there are about 2.3 calories per gram in this particular dawg. So, at 57 grams for the Frankfurter and 46 grams for the wiener, that came to only about 230 calories! Really, not all that bad even after adding some additional toppings.

The toppings!

For myself, I like a fairly standard group of stuff to throw on board; mustard, ketchup, minced onions, hot pepper and relish! I also like to lightly brown the inside of the bun for that finished look! 

In the end, you have thrown together a great tasting treat for low cost and a minimal impact on your waistline... enjoy!