When it comes to certain foods that people love to eat during the summer, the two favorites are hot dogs and hamburgers.

For those who are looking to eat healthy even during barbecues, it could be challenging if there aren't any healthier options available. With hot dogs and hamburgers, which of these American favorites are a better food to indulge in?

Hot Dogs

For people looking to lose or keep a certain amount of weight off of them, a hot dog may be the better option. A beef hot dog has at least 450 calories, which is less than whats in a hamburger.

If a person wants to make the hot dog even healthier, a whole wheat bun would be much better instead of eating it with the traditional white bun. As far as the type of the hot dog that is best to eat, a chicken or turkey frank would do the trick. The downside of eating a hotdog lies within how much sodium is in it.

The American Heart Association suggests that adults should have no more than 2,300mg of sodium per day. If a person were to eat a beef frank, that would be 450mg of sodium, not including the bread and toppings. Hot dogs also contain nitrates, which are salts added as preservatives. Nitrates can also be found in sausages and bacon.

A hot dog is also carcinogenic. The International Agency for Research on Cancer states that red and processed meats are classified as "carcinogenic" to humans based on evidence that consumption cause colorectal cancer. Furthermore, hot dogs aren't very filling, and usually one isn't enough to satisfy a person.

Hamburgers

With hamburgers, beef patties have much more nutrition than hot dogs. Ground beef contains more protein and zinc and less sodium. Hamburger also contains vitamin b12 and selenium. It also offers healthier toppings to pair with them such as tomatoes and lettuce.

Unfortunately, red meat is very high in saturated fat and it has been linked to high blood cholesterol and heart disease. When barbecuing red meat, it increases the risk of getting the said diseases because high temperature adds carcinogenic compounds. If a person wants to eat a hamburger, a better option would be a lean ground beef burger combined with vegetables.

And The Winner Is?

Overall, hamburgers would be the better option but the occasional hot dog wouldn't harm a person either.

Mariana Stern, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Southern California, stated to Time Magazine that previous studies have shown that processed meat is more harmful to people with diets that are low in antioxidants.