A hot dog is a very convenient snack that is very easy to prepare. All you need is a sausage, a roll and possibly a sauce. It is not the healthiest option, but often, even on the road, people decide to eat something hot. It turns out that because of the meat used in the sausage, the hot dog shortens the lifespan of the eaters by 36 minutes. It goes, among others o the carbon footprint of the sausage production.
- A study published in the journal Nature Food shows how these products affect our health
- Almost 6 thousand. products, which are divided into three categories, depending on their impact on human health and the environment
- The most dangerous is processed meat, which is used in the production of sausages
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Researchers checked 5853 products. They ranked them in terms of their impact on both human health and the environment. The authors of the study say that making small changes to your diet can make a big difference to your health and the carbon footprint of the atmosphere.
– Giving up only 10 percent. daily consumption of beef and processed meats of various kinds and replacing them with a mix of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and selected seafood could reduce the average carbon footprint of people in the U.S. by a third, study authors Olivier Jolliet and Katerina Stylianou wrote. As they emphasized, one day of a diet without meat will extend our life by about 48 minutes.
The researchers used a nutritional index known as the ‘Health Nutritional Index’ to calculate how a given product affects health. It was previously developed with a dietitian and research co-author Victor Fulgoni. It is based on data from the huge epidemiological study Global Burden of Disease (GBD).
GBD includes data collected over the past 30 years from every country in the world. Thanks to this information, it determines the presence of various factors related to health, lifestyle and the environment, and the damage they cause.
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Using the collected data, the authors calculated (in minutes) how a given product affects human health. The study shows that one hot dog shortens our lives by 36 minutes. In turn, eating one cucumber can extend our life by almost 10 minutes.
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The team also included the environmental impact in its calculations. Researchers used a method called IMPACT World +, which measures the impact of a food’s life cycle on its production, processing, preparation, consumption, waste production and water consumption.
By combining these two metrics, scientists were able to sort the products into three colors: red, yellow and green. Red indicates products that should be eliminated, e.g. processed meat. Yellow refers to relatively neutral food, which, however, should not be eaten in excessive amounts, e.g. jelly beans. Green is the most healthy and environmentally friendly products, such as nuts, fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and some seafood.