Study: Human DNA Found in 2% of Hot Dogs and Sausages Analyzed by Genome Sequencing

[Fred Sanders]

http://www.clearfood.com/food_reports/2015/the_hotdog_report

Cross Contamination of Pork and Meat in Vegetarian Food Aslo Found

Of the 345 hot dogs and sausages Clear Food analyzed for this report, 14.4% were problematic in some way. Problems included substitutions and hygienic issues. Substitution occurs when ingredients are added that do not show up on the label. Hygienic issues occur when some sort of non-harmful contaminant is introduced to the hot dog, in most cases, human DNA. Here's what we found:

Substitution: We encountered a surprising number of substitutions or unexpected ingredients. We found evidence of meats not found on labels, an absence of ingredients advertised on labels, and meat in some vegetarian products.

Hygienic issues: Clear Food found human DNA in 2% of the samples. 2/3rds of the samples with human DNA were vegetarian products.*

We found evidence of chicken (in 10 samples), beef (in 4 samples), turkey (in 3 samples), and lamb (in 2 samples) in products that were not supposed to contain those ingredients.

Pork is a particularly unwelcome substitution in any food when you consider that significant numbers of people do not eat pork for religious reasons. Clear Food found pork substitution in 3% of the samples we tested. In most cases, pork found its way into chicken and turkey sausages.

Pork substitution was an issue in products across the price spectrum being sold at a wide variety of retailers.

[rogerashton]

1. The butcher got a little behind in his work?

Although I suppose the DNA could come from saliva or other, um, products of the human body.

[HuckleB]

2. That's a scary headline, but not much else.

Why you shouldn’t panic about human DNA in veggie dogs
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9636174/human-dna-hot-dog

Stop Freaking Out About Human DNA in Hot Dogs
http://gizmodo.com/stop-freaking-out-about-human-dna-in-hot-dogs-1739285946

Did a "study" really find that hot dog brands regularly contain human DNA and unlabeled meat substitutions?
http://www.snopes.com/clear-foods-hot-dog-dna-study/