Diet Food Reviews
Ball Park Fat Free Beef Franks
By: | Jun 27, 2009
Throughout the summer grilling season, I have become excellent at finding substitutions for fat laden meats. Instead of a burger, I have learned to love turkey or black bean burgers. Instead of steak, I will serve up a seasoned chicken breast. However, until I ran across Ball Park Fat Free Beef Franks, I had never found a good substitute for a nice, juicy hot dog. I had pretty much decided that the essential ingredient for hot dogs was fat, so I was very excited to try this new find.
I wasn't terribly impressed with the long ingredient list, but, hey, what can you expect from a hot dog? The taste, however, more than made up for the unnatural ingredients. I actually popped these suckers on my George Foreman Grill and cooked them that way. I put each dog on a slice of whole wheat bread, and was good to go. Even though they are not as good as the full fat Zweigle's dogs, I was sufficiently impressed, especially to the tune of 180 calories for two hot dogs!! (I used 40-calorie light wheat bread in lieu of a bun).
Each Ball Park Fat Free Beef Frank provides 50 calories, 6 grams of carbohydrates including 2 grams of sugars and 5 grams of protein. They also contain 20% of the daily value for sodium (470 mg).
I purchased this package of 8 hot dogs at my local grocer for $3.99, which is about the same as most other hot dogs. I would absolutely recommend this product for anyone watching his or her waistline and looking for a picnic treat!
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I do enjoy these as a replacement for hot dogs during summer BBQ's. Infact, I don't remember the last time I had a "real" hot dog, so I guess to be fair I can't compare taste. lol But I wonder how you come up with your nutritional ratings? Casting fat free and low calorie aside, just focusing on the ingredients, they are loaded with artificial everything, one of the most processed foods you can eat. In my opinion, that's not nutritious or healthy at all. I would have given it a rating of 2, and that's being generous. I'm not condemning them (that'd make me a hypocrite lol), but I was just wondering how/why you gave them such a high nutritional rating.
Hey Emily. The ingredients don't seem to be all that bad - for a hot dog. They are beef, water, partially hydrolyzed beef broth, modified food starch, dextrose, corn syrup & 2% or less of a few things.
Plus, I may be a bit skewed because of the food scientist in me, but I'm not as skeptical about things which are 'artificial' or have long sounding names - not everything that we produce that's not necessarily from a natural source is going to kill us off sooner (in fact we are living longer than our predecessors). That said, I'm with you - the more natural we can eat the better.
They're hot dogs - traditionally made from bits of the animal too unappetizing to eat any other way than stuffed into a bit of intestine.
I've seen the white turkey franks, but not these. I'll have to give them a try.
There is nothing wrong with artificial ingredients. It's just marketing nonsense that has people believing that somehow natural ingredients are somehow better are more healthy than something man made.
In fact natural loses out nutritionally to man made in a lot of ways.
I bought these this week because the SHop Rite included them in the Ball Park for $1.77 per pack sale. Can't wait to try them for the 4th of July picnic!
Try Hebrew National's 97% FF beef hot dogs. I've found it to be closer to an actual dog than the other FF dogs. Slather some spicy brown mustard and you've got a low fat tasty meal.
@ Robyn - ha I picked up some at the Shop Rite sale too. AK - thanks for the recommendation, definitely gonna give it a try.
If you can find them, try Empire Kosher Turkey or Chicken hot dogs. They are much healthier and less greasy than beef and don't contain nearly as many artificial ingredients. They're a bit pricier than non-kosher, but you get a better quality of meat.