Five years a pescetarian

As of this month, I have been a pescetarian for five years, which truly isn't any dent whatsoever in human civilization's impact on Earth, and time is an arbitrary thing anyway, but, hey, it makes for a blog post, because...

... During the first half of my life, I ate a lot of hot dogs. They truly seemed to be the perfect and cheap food for so many occasions: quick lunches and dinners, cookouts, ballgames, working dinner breaks, late-night snacks (ugh).

When I was at Penn State, Uni-Mart hot dogs were often two for $1, which fit perfectly into a college student's budget (and Uni-Mart knew it, too). Also when I was in college, my girlfriend, wise beyond her years, deployed propaganda and other methods in an attempt to divest me of my hot-dog habit. She was not a fan of what she termed "speckled meat" — hot dogs, sausages and, perhaps worst of all in her eyes, scrapple.

In addition to some light public shaming and teasing, she would also give me anti-frankfurter ephemera, such as the actual early 1990s magazine clipping show above, which I came across in a recent round of sorting. It states:

WHAT IS A HOT DOG?
CARCASSES FROM OLD OR THIN CATTLE AND SWINE; CHEEKS, JOWLS, HEARTS, TONGUES, LIPS, EYELIDS, GUMS, INTESTINES, EARS, NOSTRILS, TAILS, SNOUTS, TENDONS, WINDPIPE, LIVER, KIDNEY, SALT, FAT, BONE, BLOOD, PRESERVATIVES
ENJOY.

Ultimately, decades later, it was not the ingredients of hot dogs (or anything else) that caused me to pivot to pescetarianism (which, I freely admit, is a lazy and half-assed "step" toward vegetarianism). I actually think hot dogs and other speckled meats are an efficient way to make sure we're using every part of the animal. If we're going to slaughter them, we shouldn't let any part go to waste.

So, I wasn't ultimately swayed by the horror of eating nostrils, tails and snouts. Rather, I was swayed by my eyes finally being opened to the horror of the conditions in which beautiful, intelligent animals are raised and slaughtered for food; the ghastly lack of humanity inherent in that system; and the extent to which it's entirely unsustainable for civilization. We need to take great leaps forward in our compassion for other living creatures, and we also need to find better solutions for feeding the billions of humans on this planet.

As for me, I'm still enjoying occasional hot-dog-shaped foodstuffs. I can put my favorite ingredients — mustard, relish, onions, and sauerkraut — on Morningstar Farms Veggie Dogs. Yum! And no speckles present.