Alternative meat isn't truly competitor of beef hot dogs

The July 4 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest was conducted without Joey Chestnut, who was prohibited from competing because of an endorsement deal with a plant-based hot dog company. The administrators of the Nathan’s contest felt that Chestnut was supporting a rival brand.

Plant-based hot dogs are an alternative to beef hot dogs. They are not truly a competitor of a beef hot dog company.

I’m no vegetarian, but I’m also not going to turn my back on the produce farmers who are helping to preserve our rural way of life. I understand there’s a difference between the New York county where the Nathan’s contest is held and San Diego County, where approximately 35% of the nation’s avocados are grown, but I will openly admit to having put guacamole on hot dogs I ate.

San Diego County may also be where the first meatless hot dogs were produced. This is based on the Catholic Church definition of meat as flesh from land-based vertebrae. Seafood does not constitute meat.

Currently practicing Catholics do not eat meat on Ash Wednesday or on Fridays during Lent. Prior to the Vatican II reforms, Catholics did not eat meat on any Friday. Some believe that was due to the Pope making a deal with fishermen, and some believe that it’s the Cat‑holic church and the Pope’s cat wanted fish in the household.

The official Catholic explanation is that at one time only the rich could afford meat, so by having them give up meat one day a week they could understand what it was like for poorer Catholics who could only afford fish.

By the 1960s, Catholics without significant material wealth could afford beef and the rich who were eating lobster and crab weren’t truly sacrificing, so the abstention from meat was modified to cover only Fridays during Lent along with Ash Wednesday.

C. Arnholt Smith is best known for owning a couple of professional baseball teams called the San Diego Padres; he purchased the Pacific Coast League team and later was awarded a National League expansion franchise. He was also involved in the tuna industry. The combination of tuna and sports led to a meatless hot dog.

The prohibition against Catholics eating meat on all Fridays throughout the year reduced hot dog sales at high school football games involving Catholic schools. One of Smith’s employees developed a fish-based hot dog. The obstacles included ensuring that the hot dog didn’t smell or taste like fish and that the tuna-based hot dog remained intact when cooked.

The City of Chula Vista also decided that fish wasn’t meat; a former meat processing plant was acquired and the zoning allowed meat processing but not fish processing. A zoning variance was granted, and Tunies began being sold in late 1957.

The Vatican II reform led to a decline in demand for Tunies and the fish-based hot dogs were soon discontinued. No beef hot dog company decision-maker ever considered Tunies to be a competitor.

People eat meatless food, including plant-based hot dogs, for a variety of reasons. Whether the choice to eat meatless hot dogs is on a year-round basis due to health or animal welfare sentiments or seasonal due to religious practice, nobody who eats a meatless hot dog would otherwise be eating a beef hot dog that day.

Ironically Chestnut spent July 4 in Texas, which has a higher opinion of beef than New York, for a contest also involving U.S. Army soldiers and raising money for military families.

He ate 57 beef hot dogs in just over half the time the winner of the Nathan’s contest ate only one more. Joey Chestnut endorsed a plant-based hot dog, but he still eats meat. Plant-based food and meat food can be situational and not truly competing products.

Joe Naiman