The Claim

Last year The Cancer Project petitioned the USDA, claiming that processed meats such as hot dogs increase the risk of cancer. While the science behind that claim is in question, they argue that eating 50 grams of processed meat per day, about the size of a hot dog, increases your risk of colorectal cancer by 21%. A Cancer Project spokesman stated that eating processed meat in any quantity should be considered unsafe.

How do hot dogs cause cancer?

Hot dogs, and other processed meats such as pepperoni and bacon, contain sodium nitrite, a food preservative. The worry is that sodium nitrite will combine with amino acids in the stomach to form nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic (cause cancer).

Why not just stop using sodium nitrite?

Sodium nitrite was used initially because it is an effective preservative which also enhances and protects the flavor and color of meat. It was later found that nitrites are effective at killing the bacterium that causes botulism, a serious and often fatal paralytic disease carried by food. Botulism used to be such a problem that in the 1970s the USDA required that a certain amount of sodium nitrite be included in cured and processed meats to fight this illness. Because of sodium nitrite the disease has all but disappeared and is no longer a major worry.

What if I stop eating hot dogs?

Even if you adopted a completely vegan diet, you would still consume nitrites. Surprisingly, 85% of a person's nitrite intake comes from green, leafy vegetables such as spinach and lettuce. Nitrites are also present in most drinking water, especially well water. By eliminating processed meat from their diet, the average person would only reduce their nitrite consumption by about five percent.

Nitrites are a natural part of your immune system.

Your body produces nitrites naturally in greater quantities than you consume with food. This is because they are essential in fighting bacterial illness such as gastroenteritis. Nitrites are secreted in saliva. In the stomach, rather than form nitrosamines as is feared, stomach acids cause nitrites to form nitric oxide, which aids in healing burns and controlling blood pressure.

Not only are nitrites in the proper amounts not harmful to humans, they are essential in preventing food-borne illness. Eliminating them from the diet would not improve health, and they are produced naturally by the body anyway. You can read more about sodium nitrite here.