What Are Hot Dogs and Burgers Made Of?

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM · September 29, 2025 · Volume 70

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How much of hot dogs and burgers is actual muscle meat?

Discuss

Transcript

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

What is in the hot dogs we eat? A forensic study published in the Annals of Diagnostic Pathology found bone, blood vessels, nerves, cartilage, and skin. But the kicker was that the amount of actual meat in a hot dog was less than 10 percent. But of course, the component of hot dogs we should most care about is its cancer risk, and it contributes to colorectal cancer, the #1 cancer killer of nonsmokers.

That’s why the prestigious World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommended in their landmark report that people simply avoid processed meat. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association chided the expert report as “bad advice,” saying that a different report found no link between meat and cancer. A report that was, in their words, “comprehensive” by “independent scientists.” “How the [World Cancer Research Fund] (WCRF) review could come to a different conclusion is perplexing,” the beef association wrote. Well, I found the so-called “independent,” “comprehensive review” the beef industry was referring to, and be perplexed no more!

I was on to it like brown on rice. Let’s compare: the report funded by a leading nonprofit cancer research organization took nine independent teams of about 200 scientists covering nearly 7,000 studies, compiled by some of the top cancer researchers in the world, and overseen by the likes of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, producing a report more than 500 pages long.

On the other hand, this one was two-and-a-half pages, written by a for-profit, scientists-for-hire consulting firm, defenders of Big Tobacco and virtually every other toxic substance. And this is a quote-unquote “independent” study? Bought and paid for by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

If you think that took chutzpah, wait until you see what the pork industry did. Smithfield, the largest pork producer in the world, launched the “Deli for the Cure” campaign, donating five cents for every pound sold of exactly the type of meat found most causal for cancer.

What about burgers? Anatomic pathologists at the Cleveland Clinic dissected fast-food burgers to see what was inside. Americans eat five billion burgers a year, and most consumers presume that the hamburgers they eat are composed primarily of meat. But what did the researchers find?

They analyzed burgers from eight different fast-food joints, and found them to contain much of the same tissues seen in hot dogs. That’s probably not a good sign. And two of the eight fast-food burgers contained parasites. A quarter of the sample burgers they looked at had swarms of these little parasites. The researchers found blood vessels, nerves, and cartilage too. What about actual meat?

What percentage of a fast-food burger is actually muscle flesh, as opposed to these other tissues, parasites, fillers, and everything else? Meat content in the hamburgers ranged from 2 percent to 14.8 percent. Just 2 percent meat? They’re practically vegetarian!

Part of that other 85 to 98 percent that was not muscle meat may be ammonia. Thanks to some excellent investigative reporting, we learned that a company developed a novel technique for killing fecal bacteria: injecting beef with ammonia.

The meat industry loved this method so much that ammonia found its way into the majority of hamburgers sold across the United States. The ammonia doesn’t have to be listed as an ingredient because it’s a considered a “processing aid.” In the U.S., it made its way into all the big chains, and millions of pounds every year were given to our kids at school.

This is what the process looks like, producing what one microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture called pink slime, saying he doesn’t even consider the stuff to be meat.

It’s not even good enough for prisoners in Georgia. It was sent back because the meatloaf stank like window cleaner. Why would we feed this to schoolchildren? School lunch officials said they ultimately agreed to use the ammonia-treated meat because it shaved about three cents off the cost of making a pound of ground beef.

The process is banned in Canada. Production and consumption of pink slime is strictly prohibited in Europe. In the United States, however, the meat industry sued ABC News for its story about it, and though ABC News maintained that its reporting was accurate, ABC News backed down after facing the potential for billions of dollars of damages. Upon industry request, the USDA simply reclassified the product as ground beef, displaying the raw power of Big Slime.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Sources

Acknowledgements

Motion graphics by Avo Media

Topics

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

What is in the hot dogs we eat? A forensic study published in the Annals of Diagnostic Pathology found bone, blood vessels, nerves, cartilage, and skin. But the kicker was that the amount of actual meat in a hot dog was less than 10 percent. But of course, the component of hot dogs we should most care about is its cancer risk, and it contributes to colorectal cancer, the #1 cancer killer of nonsmokers.

That’s why the prestigious World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommended in their landmark report that people simply avoid processed meat. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association chided the expert report as “bad advice,” saying that a different report found no link between meat and cancer. A report that was, in their words, “comprehensive” by “independent scientists.” “How the [World Cancer Research Fund] (WCRF) review could come to a different conclusion is perplexing,” the beef association wrote. Well, I found the so-called “independent,” “comprehensive review” the beef industry was referring to, and be perplexed no more!

I was on to it like brown on rice. Let’s compare: the report funded by a leading nonprofit cancer research organization took nine independent teams of about 200 scientists covering nearly 7,000 studies, compiled by some of the top cancer researchers in the world, and overseen by the likes of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, producing a report more than 500 pages long.

On the other hand, this one was two-and-a-half pages, written by a for-profit, scientists-for-hire consulting firm, defenders of Big Tobacco and virtually every other toxic substance. And this is a quote-unquote “independent” study? Bought and paid for by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

If you think that took chutzpah, wait until you see what the pork industry did. Smithfield, the largest pork producer in the world, launched the “Deli for the Cure” campaign, donating five cents for every pound sold of exactly the type of meat found most causal for cancer.

What about burgers? Anatomic pathologists at the Cleveland Clinic dissected fast-food burgers to see what was inside. Americans eat five billion burgers a year, and most consumers presume that the hamburgers they eat are composed primarily of meat. But what did the researchers find?

They analyzed burgers from eight different fast-food joints, and found them to contain much of the same tissues seen in hot dogs. That’s probably not a good sign. And two of the eight fast-food burgers contained parasites. A quarter of the sample burgers they looked at had swarms of these little parasites. The researchers found blood vessels, nerves, and cartilage too. What about actual meat?

What percentage of a fast-food burger is actually muscle flesh, as opposed to these other tissues, parasites, fillers, and everything else? Meat content in the hamburgers ranged from 2 percent to 14.8 percent. Just 2 percent meat? They’re practically vegetarian!

Part of that other 85 to 98 percent that was not muscle meat may be ammonia. Thanks to some excellent investigative reporting, we learned that a company developed a novel technique for killing fecal bacteria: injecting beef with ammonia.

The meat industry loved this method so much that ammonia found its way into the majority of hamburgers sold across the United States. The ammonia doesn’t have to be listed as an ingredient because it’s a considered a “processing aid.” In the U.S., it made its way into all the big chains, and millions of pounds every year were given to our kids at school.

This is what the process looks like, producing what one microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture called pink slime, saying he doesn’t even consider the stuff to be meat.

It’s not even good enough for prisoners in Georgia. It was sent back because the meatloaf stank like window cleaner. Why would we feed this to schoolchildren? School lunch officials said they ultimately agreed to use the ammonia-treated meat because it shaved about three cents off the cost of making a pound of ground beef.

The process is banned in Canada. Production and consumption of pink slime is strictly prohibited in Europe. In the United States, however, the meat industry sued ABC News for its story about it, and though ABC News maintained that its reporting was accurate, ABC News backed down after facing the potential for billions of dollars of damages. Upon industry request, the USDA simply reclassified the product as ground beef, displaying the raw power of Big Slime.

Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.

Motion graphics by Avo Media

Doctor's Note

For more on processed meats, see:

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