“Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?” -Neil Gaiman

Hot dogs: now causing genetic mutations!  Gasp!

I’m not really shocked by this whatsoever.  This is just as surpising to me as a headline that reads “Attention fast food lovers: McDonalds’ fare can make you fat!”  Gee, fatty processed foods aren’t good for you?  Are you serious?  So, my daily breakfast of three 7-11 hot dogs is turning me into a mutant freak?  Oh no!  Wait, can I be in the next X-Men comic?  No?  Then how about a career with a circus sideshow?

The MSNBC article states that hot dogs have also been linked to colon cancer.  My question is the following: how in the hell did they conclude that hot dogs are linked to colon cancer?  Isn’t it just a crappy diet in general which puts you at risk?  Let’s consider Person A, who eats nothing but fast food and pre-packaged crap all the time.  He was raised eating that way and his parents never served him healthy, home-cooked meals when he was growing up.  We also have Person B, whose parents raised him on wholesome meals including a moderate portion of all the food groups, and he has been a vegetarian for the past thirteen years, but he is a cheater and eats hot dogs sometimes because he loves them and can’t give them up.  Which one of these people is more likely to get colon cancer?  Hmmmm…

Personally, I find grilled, slightly blackened hot dogs to be quite a tasty treat at the occasional summertime cookout.  Am I going to stop eating them because MSNBC says they cause genetic mutations?  Not a chance!  I eat hot dogs maybe two or three times a year.  I’m not scared of genetic mutation.  I’m trying to imagine how many hot dogs a person would have to eat–and/or how frequently they’d need to eat them–to prove that hot dogs were the highest colon-cancer-causing factor in their life.  I don’t know if I can count that high.