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Food

Scientists Are Fighting Hot Dog Meat Fraud with Genetic Testing

A recent study used groundbreaking DNA testing to identify that meats were actually inside 20 franks purchased at Malaysian markets, and the findings aren’t the most reassuring.

When summer rolls around, it's hot dog time. From Joey Fatone to crazy Swedes and even vegans; pretty much everybody is down with the dog.

But what if someone at a barbecue told you that there was buffalo meat in your frankfurter? Would that really make you stop enjoying the perfection that is tubular meat? Probably not. But what if that person was a scientist, tasked specifically with finding out the actual genetic contents of hot dogs?

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OK, we're listening. Scientists at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, apparently not content to adhere to the adage of not knowing what's in sausages, decided to question the assumption that the contents of everyone's favourite summer food are honestly advertised.

READ MORE: If You Eat Hot Dogs, You Should Eat Lab-Grown Hamburgers

The study, with the catchy title "Double Gene Targeting Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction–Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Assay Discriminates Beef, Buffalo, and Pork Substitution in Frankfurter Products," used groundbreaking DNA testing to identify which meats were actually inside 20 franks purchased at Malaysian markets, and the findings aren't the most reassuring.

Unfortunately, what they found was "rampant substitution of beef with buffalo" but, on the bright side, "purity in porcine materials." With beef prices reaching historic highs, beef theft and fraud—usually in the form of substituting beef with horse meat—are a growing concern to food safety experts and scientists are eager to find fast, efficient ways to get to analyze them.

"Beef, buffalo, and pork adulteration in the food chain is an emerging and sensitive issue," the authors of the study wrote, adding that the novel genetic authentication test they used will "ensure better security" for future meat testing in the future.

So, if you're willing to risk eating buffalo or horse when you're crushing hot dogs, go for it. If not, you should probably stick to lab-grown burgers; it's pretty much the only way to be 100-percent sure that your favourite ground meats aren't being fucked with.