Do you know what’s in your hot dog? You’ll be surprised

They’re a perennial summertime favourite at ballparks and backyard BBQs across North America, but how much do we really know about how the sausage gets made?

Apparently not much, as a new report found that at least 14 per cent of hot dogs and sausages contained ingredients not listed on the labels or a non-harmful contaminant.

Clear Food, a branch of Clear Labs, a California-based start-up that tests food content at a molecular level, analyzed 345 hot dogs and sausages produced by 75 different brands and sold at 10 stores.

The group found meat in 10 per cent of vegetarian samples, including chicken in a vegetarian breakfast sausage and pork in a vegetarian hot dog.

The report also discovered human DNA in 2 per cent of all the hot dogs and sausages sampled. Of that, two-thirds of the human DNA was found in the vegetarian options.

Sasan Amini, co-founder of Clear Labs, the company behind the Clear Food study, told the Star that it could not specify what the exact source of the human DNA was.

“Was it human hair that dropped in there or some other source of contamination, we cannot actually say for sure. But we can definitely say that there was human DNA present in those samples,” Amini said.

Clear Labs measures the genomic composition and DNA sequencing in foods. For the study, researchers collected hot dog and sausage samples and compared them to the composition stated on their labels.

Mahni Ghorashi, a co-founder of Clear Labs, said he hoped the findings will push consumers to insist on better food products. “We believe that consumers are ready for better food, and, of course, the industry is under pressure to raise the bar to match those expectations,” Ghorashi said.

Mislabeled food can be subject to a recall under Food and Drug Administration guidelines in the U.S. The FDA may also issue an import alert when companies do not accurately label their food, which allows U.S. officials to detain product shipments. Products can be banned from the U.S. market if mislabelling issues are not rectified.

Pork, which many people do not eat for religious reasons, was found in three per cent of the samples, the report found, and it was most often used as a substitute for chicken or turkey.

“That speaks to a larger picture . . . as far as what’s in the foods that we’re buying, we really are at the mercy of the manufacturers,” said Yoni Freedhoff, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, a nutrition and weight management centre.

“The simplest way to not worry about the contents of your box or jar is not to buy products that are in boxes and jars, and really try to maximize the transformation of fresh, whole ingredients into food,” he said.

For people insisting on eating hot dogs, kosher dogs are a good bet for anyone that does not eat pork, Clear Food said. “The Kosher products we tested were 100-per-cent pork free,” the group said.