Friday Science -Hot Dogs

Ingredients.  mostly a type of meat and some chemicals and thickeners.

Turkey is becoming the "meat base" of the capitalistic world.  It is easy to grow as long as you can keep the moronic birds from stampeding themselves to death.  They are not just for thanksgiving anymore.  They convert a wide range of feed efficiently into turkey parts.  They grow fast, especially on steroids.

Other meats.  anything not stuck to a bone.  There used to be a place in St. George, Utah that made their own hotdogs. Naturally Nummy Foods made ice cream, raised turkeys, chickens and pigs and had a restaurant on main street.  He also had a big grinding bin that he made hotdogs in.  He had a mail order business and sold hotdogs all over the US.  Everything went in that bin.  Bones, innerds, ears etc..  He would turn on the ginder, add spices, good pork or beef depending on the type and let it grind for about twenty minutes.  This grey, red and white mess would grind and mix away until it magically turned pink.  IT IS DONE he would say with a big smile on his face.  Having previously cleaned and stretched the intestines, he would load the press and make hot dogs.  He would add the white powder, formaldehyde I think, something to keep the meat pink.  They were great hotdogs, sausages and links.  His ice cream was good but I was delivering soft ice cream mix which is really tasty. 

I worked at a Kahns Hotdog factory also.  The industrial mechanism that can mix, press and package ten thousand  hotdogs in a day is quite a site to see.  I would take these boxes of freshly packed hotdogs with artificial skins and deliver them to whomever wanted them.  It was such a good job.

Hotdogs are mostly lips and assholes with preservative in them, kinda like politicians.  The preservatives are the standard fare.  Nitrates, salts and aldehydes that inhibit bacteria growth and stabilize the color.  There are some thickeners like cellulose gum and corn syrup that keep the dogs plump until you cook them.  Then they really plump up, proteins shrink when heated, kinda like plastics.  Oil, water and fat ooze out of the dog.  Dogs can only have 10 percent water in them.  Anyway, finally, you have a cooked hotdog that at this point is mostly meat of some kind, salt and the flavorful fat.  At around 200 calories for a nice plain dog, you cannot beat it.