Pondering what we put in our mouths (especially on July Fourth)

Every season has its eating rituals and accompanying problems, even carefree summer. We think about food more than we used to.

My kid just got braces on his teeth. Biting down will be uncomfortable for a few days so he's eating soft stuff, which has complicated our already arduous food-selection process. Usually dinner planning is a matter of figuring out who will eat what and picking something that lies at the intersection of our individual tolerances. Softness subtracts a lot of stuff, but I had an idea.

How about hot dogs? They're easy to cook and soft. It's summer too, and because it's been so hot lately, we haven't wanted to make elaborate meals — you know, where you use more than one cooking vessel, or have to turn on the oven.

But no one would bite. My wife said absolutely not. My son recited a list of animal body parts he suspects are lurking inside each dog and that pretty much killed the idea.

Hot dogs are a staple of summer eating, but they have been under attack for some time now. People keep eating them because we have all winter to forget about the previous summer's warnings, and because they taste good.

We trash them and we celebrate them.

Congress wasted time this week arguing over flag desecration, but didn't take even a minute to battle weenie denigration, even though weenies are nearly as important a part of our most patriotic celebration as flags.

The Times had a page about hot dogs yesterday. It said that over the course of Independence Day celebrations, Americans will eat 150 million hot dogs. It also said Seattle is not among the top dog consumers, which shouldn't be surprising. Politically and economically, we're not that kind of place, so you won't object if I tell you about an e-mail I received the other day.

It was about what goes into hot dogs, particularly the variety meats. The list is long, but basically it is all the stuff you really don't want to know you are eating, such as lips.

Lips are for kissing, not eating. I especially don't want to eat lips I wouldn't even kiss.

But the gross-out factor isn't what makes hot dogs bad for you, it's high fat and loads of sodium, which might not sound as bad as lips, but will do you in if you overdo.

Summer eating is a problem; all that grilled meat, fat, chips, beer and so on. But you don't have to kill yourself, moderation is always an option. There are a bunch of different kinds of dogs, some better for you than others.

Hot dogs are a quintessential product of mass production, but look at what's happening at the other end of the spectrum. Lobsters are not processed. They are alive when they are dropped into boiling water, whole. Lobster consumption is one of the few occasions on which modern Americans get close to the experience of most people over the course of history.

But this month, Whole Foods announced it would no longer sell live lobsters, because their confinement in small tanks is inhumane.

It's harder to get a pang of conscience about eating a hot dog because it doesn't resemble anything that might once have been a fellow creature.

Some of us are wealthy enough and have enough free time to be picky about food, which can be good, as long as we aren't snooty about our choices.

Hot dogs are better than they used to be because people pressed for changes. Now you can look at the package and see whether the wieners inside have variety meats or not. There are low-fat and low-sodium products.

I say, let freedom ring, but with a little common sense.

Now, what are we going to do about Spam?

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com. His column runs Thursdays and Sundays and is found at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.