How the Sausage Gets Made: Everything You’ve Never Wanted to Know

How the Sausage Gets Made: Everything You’ve Never Wanted to Know

Sausage-making, it's used as a political metaphor for a reason. True, it's not always pretty behind the curtain, but if your curious enough and have an iron stomach, it can be a valuable bit of know-how. After all, you're shoving it down your gullet, why not find out what's in the thing?

• Traditionally, hot dogs are made by mixing trimmings (the left-over cuts) of America’s favorite edible animals: pork, beef, and chicken.

• The trimmings are ground up just like hamburger meat
• Food starch, salt and “flovorings” (chemicals) are added to the meaty mixture. Interestingly, “flavorings” vary based on different regional tastes.
• Water is added to the pile to make it all more mixable. The pile is all blended together while corn syrup is poured over the whole mess to add a little sweetness.
• The hotdogs are made juicier by even more water being poured into the blended substance that, at this point, is the consistency of tapioca pudding.
• The meat batter is then poured out of a tube and into the stuffing machine. After the stuffing machine pours the liquified meat product into 5 ½ inch cellulose casings, they begin to look a little more like the ballpark hot dogs we know and love.
• The hotdogs are then drenched in a shower of liquid smoke, baked and then chilled with cold water.
• In packaging, machines peel the casings off each hotdog, Inspectors check for defaults in the dogs, and then they’re wrapped up and shipped off to grocery stores, baseball stadiums, and street carts around the world. What do you think- does knowing how hot dogs are made turn you off of eating the meat product? Does it change your opinion of hot dogs at all?