Reason No. 1,041,378 (give or take) to never ask how the sausage gets made: You’ll find out that sometimes it has human DNA in it. One out of every 50 times, to be exact, according to Clear Food, a new California food-analytics start-up whose mission is genetic-testing manufactured food to help fight all of the food-borne illnesses that are seemingly so common. Obviously, the first thing that popped into their minds for testing was the hot dog, which the group calls the “world’s original ‘mystery meat.’” Pretty much as expected, the findings are super gross.
The researchers did tests on 345 hot dogs and sausages (brands included Hebrew National, Oscar Mayer, Trader Joe’s, Applegate, and the Whole Food’s private label, 365), and they discovered that about 15 percent “were problematic in some way.” One big problem was “a surprising number of substitutions or unexpected ingredients,” but probably more repulsive still, 2 percent of the meat hot dogs and fully two thirds of the veggie ones presented “hygiene issues” — if you catch their drift, because the tests showed traces of human DNA.
No part of the report is going to make anybody crave a hot dog for a while, though some, like 365’s mild Italian chicken sausage, scored pretty well. Also, 10 percent of veggie dogs had animal meat, usually chicken and pork — the other thing (besides human DNA) that nobody eating one of them wants.
