On the wienermobile blog site they invite you to "Submit an essay in 100 words or less that details your favorite hot dog memory and your or another family member’s favorite toppings". If you submit the best entry you get to win a "Labor Day Grill-Out" (this is not quite the same thing as getting to buy great vegetarian products at Down to Earth's 30% Guiltless Grilling Sale that we had last week).
A 100 word essay from a cow that is going to be turned into a wiener might go something like this:
"My favorite hot dog memory is when I was living at the factory farm, knee deep in sh*t, and being fed corn instead of grass (which resulted in my belly being full of gas and E coli), I started daydreaming about what life was like before the factory farms. I imagined eating grass in open fields, of feeding my milk to my calf, and of happily living my life until passing away of natural causes. I happily gave my milk to the farmer who took care of and protected me.... I awoke from my daydream to remember that today they are herding me onto a truck, taking me to the slaughterhouse, brutally murdering me, turning my flesh into meat; my brain, liver, kidneys, and other organs and my blood will be mashed up and stuffed into my intestines and sold as a hot dog...."
Please, when you look at the hot dog on your dinner plate don’t see the fun marketing (wienermobiles, hot dog eating contests); see the reality of what you are eating. The marketing, like the wienermobile, creates a kind of mirage or illusion that converts slaughtered animal body organs, fat, blood, and other scraps into a “fun memory”. But no matter how good the marketing, the fact is that hot dog is someone else's body.
Love Life! Love animals, don't eat them.
Mark Fergusson