Tommy Tofu & Pals to Appear at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest With Free Veggie Dogs for Everyone
Editor’s note: We covered this event last year as well as the year prior. During one year, featuring a human hot dog, the event was still held in the pouring rain.
Hot diggity! On Friday, PETA’s Tommy Tofu and his PETA pals will be right there at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, distributing hundreds of tasty vegan hot dogs as they challenge hungry spectators to enjoy a free, flavorful Fourth that is also animal-friendly.
“Vegan hot dogs are delicious and kind, and who really wants to support slaughterhouses – the word is enough – by buying what comes out of them,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA encourages everyone to let freedom ring for all by leaving animals in peace this Fourth of July and beyond.”
Outside Nathan’s Famous, 1310 Surf Ave., Brooklyn (at the intersection of Surf and Stillwell Avenues) – Friday, July 4, 12 noon
Why it matters: Cows can recognize the faces of their friends in photographs and mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. In the meat industry, cows are often confined to cramped, filthy feedlots without protection from the elements. Calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth and are castrated, dehorned, and branded without any pain relief. At slaughterhouses, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and slit their throat—often while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.
A portion of the video contains clips from We Animals Media. They are of pig farming in various locations, and the following is their description of the enclosed videos:
Headline: An aerial view of waste holding ponds at a commercial pig farm, with a capacity of 1,000 to 1,200 animals. Situated among active agricultural fields, the farm’s liquid waste drains from the ponds into the fields and the solid waste is used to fertilize the land between planting seasons. Undisclosed, Gurugram, Haryana, India, 2024. Shatabdi Chakrabarti / We Animals
And the second clip:
Headline: Aerial view of several barns and adjacent open waste lagoons on a large pig farm. The stagnant lagoons contain feces, urine, blood and other bodily fluids from the pigs kept inside the barns. Rafaela, Santa Fe Province, Argentina, 2023. Renata Valdivia / Sinergia Animal / We Animals
Below images from the event are courtesy of PETA
Banner Image: Tommy Tofu and pals. Image Credit – PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals. PETA works through public education, investigative newsgathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.