Eating a hot dog alone can take 36 minutes of life, according to a study by health experts at the University of Michigan.
In the study , published in the journal Nature Food, researchers looked at 5,853 foods and measured their effects in minutes of healthy living - gained or lost.
"We wanted to make a health assessment based on the beneficial and harmful effects of food throughout the diet," Olivier Jolliet, a university professor of environmental health and author of the study, told CNN.
They used The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) - a comprehensive regional and global disease research program that assesses mortality and disability from major diseases, injuries and risk factors. GBD is a collaboration of over 3,600 researchers from 145 countries and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"For example, you lose 0.45 minutes per gram of processed meat, or gain 0.1 minutes per gram of fruit. We then look at the composition of each food and then multiply that number by the corresponding food profiles we developed earlier," Jolliet said. .
One of the foods measured by the researchers was a hot dog. The amount of processed meat resulted in the loss of 27 minutes of healthy living, Jolliet said - but the final value is 36 minutes due to other ingredients like sodium and fatty acids.
Consumption of foods such as nuts, legumes, seafood, fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, have positive effects on health.
"The point is to choose better foods, not to spend time doing math," Jolliet added.
