A study has found that eating processed foods, such as hotdogs, may cost minutes of healthy life.
In a landmark dietary and environmental impact study published in Nature Food, researchers from the University of Michigan evaluated more than 5,800 types of food to measure both their direct health burden and environmental footprint.
The findings placed processed meats—particularly hotdogs—in the study’s “red zone,” indicating high negative health impacts alongside significant environmental costs.
The study used the Health Nutritional Index (HENI), which calculates the net health burden or benefit of specific food portions in terms of minutes of healthy life gained or lost.
Researchers found that eating a single 61-gram serving of processed beef or pork hotdog could result in an estimated loss of 36 minutes of healthy life.
“The health burden attributable to a serving of beef hotdog on a bun is 36 min lost, largely due to the detrimental effect of processed meat,” researchers Katerina Stylianou, Victor Fulgoni, and Olivier Jolliet said.
They also found that the health risks linked to hotdogs and similar processed meats are primarily driven by high sodium content, saturated fats, and carcinogenic compounds formed during processing and curing.
To counter this, researchers said replacing just 10% of daily calorie intake from beef and processed meats with plant-based alternatives—such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, or low-impact seafood—could add up to 48 minutes of healthy life per day.
For its environmental impact, the researchers found that hotdogs carry a high carbon footprint.
They said the climate impact of hotdogs is largely driven by the intensive land, water, and agricultural resources required for beef and pork production, as well as energy-intensive processing and packaging.
Foods categorized in the “red zone”—led by processed meats, red meat, and other high-impact animal products—account for the largest share of dietary greenhouse gas emissions and land-use demands.
Researchers said shifting from processed red meats to plant-rich diets could reduce an individual’s dietary carbon footprint by one-third.
“Our findings demonstrate that small, targeted substitutions offer a feasible and powerful strategy to achieve significant health and environmental benefits, without requiring dietary shifts at once,” the researchers said.
“Expanding the food production system boundaries (for example, transportation, packaging and retail), alternative practices (for example, open field, heated/unheated greenhouse, organic), and novel processes and technologies, all factors that influence the environmental performance of foods, could refine this analysis in the future,” the researchers added.
Thus, researchers concluded that total dietary overhauls are not necessary to achieve meaningful results.
They recommended targeted, small-scale swaps like replacing a hotdog or any processed meat with nuts or vegetables offer a straightforward path to improving personal longevity while easing pressure on global ecosystems. — Image from Shutterstock
