What's in a hot dog? Beef, pork, and a complicated history of class dynamics

Writer and comedian Jamie Loftus has, in her own words, been "obsessed" with a video about how hot dogs are made since she was in college.

The five-minute video, taken from a 2008 episode of the show How It's Made, details the factory process of turning scraps of meat into the eight-packs of wieners seen everywhere in North America from school lunchrooms to baseball stadiums.

In one shot, pink-grey emulsified meat — spiked with spices, water and corn syrup — oozes out of a metal pipe, looking more like soft-serve ice cream.

"It's funny to me because it is the best possible, most flattering way to show how a hot dog is made, and it's still absolutely disgusting," she told The Sunday Magazine's guest host Megan Williams.

Loftus travelled the United States in 2021 to learn more about the hot dog, including tasting dozens of regional variations, for her book Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs.

On the outside, she says the hot dog is an iconic dish that exemplifies the ingenuity and individualism of the United States; on the other, its continued popularity and affordability is only possible thanks to the dark side of capitalism.

"There just wasn't a lot written about the history of hot dogs that also acknowledged the labour exploitation that's necessary in order for hot dogs to exist," she said. "So I … jumped on the opportunity to punish my body with as many hot dogs as possible."

Loftus said that for many, hot dogs are associated with a working, lower-to-middle class due to their historically low price and easy preparation.

"It endures because it is still possible for basically everyone to have access to it, which is kind of rare for any kind of famous food," she said.

That's thanks in no small part to how the dogs are mass-produced and distributed, she noted.

"The industrialization happens in the 1930s, and it comes through … emulsification, which is basically just taking meat and blending it into a paste and then pumping it into artificial casings," said Jeffrey Pilcher, a professor of history and food studies at the University of Toronto.

That process helps set it apart from traditional sausages, and shares many techniques that made other items like fish sticks and chicken nuggets possible, Pilcher said.

Their accessibility and affordability, however, is largely thanks to low-wage workers manning the factories that make them, said Loftus.

A 2022 report by ProPublica found evidence that then-U.S. president Donald Trump's administration worked directly with the heads of Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods — makers of Ball Park Franks and Nathan's Famous hot dogs, respectively — to issue an executive order allowing the plants to remain open during COVID-19, ostensibly in the patriotic interest of feeding the American public.