New research from the University of Michigan that suggests eating one hot dog takes 36 minutes off your life has caused shockwaves in the hot dog eating competition community.
The study looked into more than 5,800 foods and ranked them by nutritional disease burden to humans.
Researchers found that a beef hot dog in a bun resulted in 36 minutes lost, “largely due to the detrimental effect of processed meat.”
Joey Chestnut, a competitive eating legend, has eaten at least 1,094 hot dogs, adding up to 39,384 minutes off of his life, or a little more than 27 days.
Chrissy Brissette, a dietician commenting on Joey’s intake said: “I think if you’re eating hot dogs in a Joey-type of way, this could be a turning point in your life to maybe cut back a little bit.
(Image: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
“If you enjoy a hot dog once in awhile, completely fine. Everybody wants to have fun foods in their life, and that’s part of enjoying eating.”
Joey has since spoken out about the studies findings on Twitter, writing: “Interesting, I might need to eat more nuts to get time back.”
The same study suggests that eating peanuts, baked salmon and other healthy foods can add between 10 and 15 minutes back to your life, ABC 13 reports.
(Image: Getty Images)
Researchers also found that the American favourite peanut butter and jelly sandwich can add 33 minutes of healthy living on to a life.
Brissette says people should have ‘digestible numbers to help us in our health journey’ and there are two main ones to keep in mind.
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“Focus on the numbers 80-20 when you’re thinking about your diet. Eighty percent of the time, try to go for some of those more nutritious foods that will help to extend your life,” Brissette said.
“And then 20% of the time go it’s OK to go for some of those, maybe less nutritious but fun foods, like a hot dog once in a while.”