A nutritional index was recently released by the School of Public health, at the University of Michigan. It points out and ranks foods based on minutes gained or lost in terms of life expectancy per serving.
New research evaluated more than 5,800 foods and their impact on human health & the environment.
An astonishing finding? Eating a hot dog could cost you 36 minutes of healthy life, & eating a serving of nuts instead could help you gain 26 minutes.
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— Michigan Public Health (@umichsph) August 19, 2021
For instance, eating a hot dog may shorten your “healthy life” by up to 36 minutes say researchers from the University of Michigan. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich adds more than 30 extra minutes to your life, followed by baked salmon (13.5 minutes) and bananas (13.5 minutes). Soft drinks, double cheeseburgers, pizza and bacon all fell into the “minutes lost” from healthy life expectancy category, although hot dogs remained the biggest culprit.
The authors of the study explained how they reached their conclusion:
“The 61 grams of processed meat in a hot dog sandwich results in 27 minutes of healthy life lost due to this amount of processed meat alone.Then, when considering the other risk factors, like the sodium and trans fatty acids inside the hot dog – counterbalanced by the benefit of its polyunsaturated fat and fibers – we arrived at the final value of 36 minutes of healthy life lost per hot dog.”
Now that you know, you may want to cut down your hot dog consumption.