Conference moira::parenting

    Let me say that I was brought up on hot dogs.  I used to come home from
    school every day for lunch and mom would have my boiled hot dog with
    relish waiting for me.  We also had hot dogs FREQUENTLY for Saturday
    night supper.  I'm 37 and have had no ill effects of any kind.
    
    I also loved balogna on the days I didn't get a hot dog...maybe I
    craved nitrates!!
    
    -sjd
    

    My Mother in Law mentioned this to me on Sunday when she came up for a
    cookout.  My son loves hot dogs but does not eat more than 9 a month. 
    But I know of some kids that eat quit a bit of them and they are fine.
    
    Like Sandy I loved bologna and my son now does.  He eats a good amount
    of it but I don't think the amount he eats will harm him any and like
    Sandy I am 34 and have had no ill effects of any kind from eating so
    much bologna when I was a kid.
    
    Liz

I haven't heard of the study, but the fact that children who eat lots of
hot dogs don't get leukemia doesn't contradict an increased risk of leukemia.

The culprit is SODIUM NITRITE .. (Not Nitrate)  There are long established
links between Sodium Nitrite and cancers.  This is not new news.  It is
particularly worse with alcohol.

As ever ... moderation is the key.

Stuart

    I heard it was 12 a month.  Still, that is four a week and I know alot
    of kids that eat four a week.  
    
    Maybe the past ingredients, when we were young, were different than
    those of processed foods today?
    
    cj

>    Maybe the past ingredients, when we were young, were different than
>    those of processed foods today?

If anything, my guess is that they were worse.  Little was known about the 
effect of preservatives or about the causes of cancer and other diseases.
  
It's important to keep this in context.  "Increased liklihood of cancer" 
doesn't mean that you eat one to many hotdogs and you're sure to get cancer. 
Often these increased probabilities mean that instead of a 1 in 200,000 
chance, you have a 1 in 100,000 chance (those are NOT actual numbers, just 
picked out of the air).  While that DOUBLES your risk, the risk is still 
small.  A reverse example might be buying three lottery tickets instead of 
one. You've just TRIPLED the probability of your winning the lottery, but 
it's still very small.

This is not to trivialize the information, just to put it in context.  In 
fact sometimes the sensationalizing of these things detracts from the 
message.  You get people saying "Well I ate a hot dog every day, and I didn't 
get cancer, therefore they must be wrong."  Or similarly, "I've been driving 
for 30 years without a seatbelt, and I'm still alive," or "I smoke a pack a 
day, and I'm 90 years old."

As Stuart says, moderation is the key.

Clay

One other point the article did make was that a study of this kind is
hard to control because kids and parents can't remember everything that
was eaten.  The study was not done with a strict control group.

Pam

While this particular study was not scientifically sound, it has been long
known that Sodium Nitrite is a carcinogen.  At one time it was routinely
added to hamburger and other meats to preserve their nice red colour while
on display.  Modern packaging preserves the colour satisfatorily to
remove this danger.

In cured meats, however, like hot dogs etc, it is used as a preservative,
and the risks from the preservative are much lower than the risks from
bad meats ... like salmonella and botulism.

Stuart

Re: .4

> The culprit is SODIUM NITRITE .. (Not Nitrate)  There are long established
> links between Sodium Nitrite and cancers.  This is not new news.  It is
> particularly worse with alcohol.

So... Friends don't let friends drink and eat hot dogs?

-marc

>So... Friends don't let friends drink and eat hot dogs?

Well, I wouldn't go on hot dog (or bacon or ham ....) and beer binge on a 
regular basis !  :-)

Stuart