WITH the weather warming up and BBQ season just around the corner, it won't be long until your tucking into a hot dog.
But people are more likely to opt for a burger next time after discovering exactly what Frankfurters are made from - and they're totally grossed out.
In a clip from Discovery UK's 'How It's Made,' the narrator visits a factory which manufactures a whopping 300,000 hot dogs an hour to see exactly how they're made.
"To make standard hot dogs, they use a mix of pork, beef and chicken," he explains.
"The cuts they use are called 'trimmings' - pieces of meat left over from cutting steaks or pork chops and they're mainly muscle tissue.
"They grind the trimmings the same way butchers grind hamburger meat, by pushing the cuts through a metal plate."
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He goes onto say they add processed chicken trimmings to the ground meat, then mix in food starch, salt and other flavourings.
"The starch thickens the mix, while the flavourings vary depending on where the hot dogs are to be sold because people in different regions have different tastes."
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Next, he notes how the ingredients are sprayed with water before being blended together in a big rectangular vat, while a dash of clear corn syrup is added for extra sweetness.
More water is then introduced to help disperse the ingredients and make the hot dogs juicier.
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"Another machine then shreds the meat batter into a fine emulsion and vacuums out any air," he continues.
"They load rolls of cellulose tubing into the stuffing machine.
"It pumps the meat puree into a long casing, twisting it every 13cm - the length of one hot dog."
Incredibly, he points out that it takes just 35 seconds to make a chain of hot dogs that'd span a football pitch twice.
The next step on the hot dog's journey is to travel through a "liquid smoke shower," which works by seeping through the casing and adding flavour to them as they bake in the oven.
Once out of the oven, Frankfurters are drenched in cold and salty water to chill then in preparation for packaging.
But the final stage can't be complete until they've visited the peeler machine, which sees a tiny knife slit each casing along the top, while steamy air blows the case right off.
And following the shocking revelation about how hot dogs are made - people's stomachs have been left churning.
"This is why I wanna be vegan but they just taste so good," wrote one.
A second quipped: "Well this proves the old saying, 'if you knew how they were made you would never eat them.' But, then again, it also makes me want to fire up the grill."
A third joked: "Everyone else: 'Ew that's so gross! I never wanna eat a hotdog ever again!'
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"Me and my severe lack of standards: continues eating 7th hotdog of the day."
Meanwhile, another added: "Even though the process to make this is slightly unappetizing, I'd still eat the finished product."
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