Study says hot dogs can shave 36 minutes off one’s life

Joey Chestnut better start scarfing nuts and berries.

That may help counteract the nearly 46 hours he may have lopped off his life by gulping a winning 76 hot dogs at this year’s Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest.

Researchers at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health have calculated the health and environmental footprint of eating various foods, and come out with specific numbers. The goal was to home in on environmentally sustainable foods that promote health, then measure the health effects in minutes — ranging from 74 minutes lost to 80 minutes gained per serving, according to a nutritional scale they developed for the study.

The bad news is that highly processed meat, beef, shrimp, pork, lamb and greenhouse-grown vegetables are off the menu in this new paradigm. The good news is that all one has to do is tweak.

Researchers found that substituting just 10% of one’s daily calories for an equal value of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and “select seafood” could reduce one’s dietary carbon footprint by one-third, and grant as many as 48 minutes of healthy life per day.

A hot dog on a bun, for instance, can cost a person 36 minutes of healthy life. But a peanut butter and jelly sandwich could increase life by 33 minutes, the researchers found.

The researchers measured the minutes using the Health Nutritional Index, which they developed to calculate the net health burden of eating a particular item.

Thus, increasing fieldgrown fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and “low-environmental-impact seafood” can improve one’s longevity chances, the study authors said.