Does the regulatory definition of a hot dog allow the meat industry wide leeway to vary the recipe?
Provided that it contains "not less than 15% of one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle meat with raw meat byproducts," the U.S. Agriculture Department says, a hot dog is a hot dog. (Its rules also cover wieners, frankfurters and bologna.) Regulations stipulate in detail techniques and allowable quantities of various ingredients that give hot dogs consistency and flavor. The department publishes a glossary that can help a consumer judge the appeal and nutritional value of various types.
The meat in a hot dog may have been processed mechanically in very different ways than the meat on display at the butcher counter, but it is meat. Due to risks from mad cow disease, beef cannot be mechanically-separated. Thus the "classic" version offered by Ball Park Franks, a leading brand, is made from mechanically-separated chicken and pork.
