05/09/2026
Less than 10% of a hot dog is actually meat (muscle flesh). It mostly contains other animal parts, like bone, blood vessels, nerves, cartilage, and skin.
Our main concern, though, is the cancer risk from eating hot dogs and other processed meat, like bacon, ham, lunch meat, and sausage.
Processed meats are cancer-causing, classified as a Group 1 carcinogen. The risk of colore**al cancer, for example, is 18% higher for every 50 grams eaten a day, which is about one hot dog, two breakfast links, or two slices of Canadian bacon or ham.
How does eating processed meat compare to other behaviors?
➡️ Living with a smoker increases the risk of lung cancer by 15%. Breathing in secondhand smoke every day increases our lung cancer risk almost as much as eating a daily serving of processed meat increases our risk of colore**al cancer.
➡️ If you don’t smoke, colon and re**al cancer may be your greatest cancer nemesis. Colore**al cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for men and women combined. Processed meat may also increase the risk of prostate cancer, breast cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
🌭 Start today. Swap hot dogs and other meat with the plant-based alternatives.
If everyone in the United States replaced just one serving of meat a day with plant-based options, more than 100,000 cases of heart disease, stroke, or cancer could potentially be prevented every year.
Dr. Greger dives deeper into this topic in Ultra-Processed Foods: Concerns, Controversies, and Exceptions. see.nf/upf
Learn more at see.nf/hotdogs and see.nf/processedmeatcancer
PMID: 18325469, 29949327, 22063824, 20669524, 31198660, 28450127, 39621907
