Greg, the problem with your arguement is that it switches back and forth between ecology and health in an inconsistent manner.

If ecology is the key issue, then making full use of available meat animals is preferable, including the icky bits (but NOT including ANY nerve tissue: just say Mad Cow). Eschewing hot dogs only has the effect of making less efficient use of animals, resulting in more animals raised & slaughtered, at greater ecological impact overall.

If health is the key issue, an occasional hot dog is no more a hazard than an occasional ice cream sundae, and hot dogs in excess are no worse than most other fatty foods in excess.

Turning icky bits into petfood rather than humanfood is silly, as it only displaces some other petfood ingredients to some unknown destination, probably a compost pile, thus no efficiency gain there.

Bottom line is, I don’t see a health or ecology problem here. Cheap meat is better than expensive meat. Icky meat in a bowl becomes innocuous meat on a bun. More efficient energy-conversion from animal feed to calories for humans is better than less efficient.

There is of course the ethical issue of raising animals for slaughter. I believe that cows etc. are conscious and that the real Original Sin of humans is that we must kill to live (killing plants is still killing), but that we evolved for an omnivorous diet so the best we can do is a degree of compromise. That issue will eventually be dealt with by vat meat, something I eagerly look forward to for both moral and ecological reasons. When we get to the point of synthesizing plant matter from sunlight and chemicals, we’ll be free of any killing in order to live. And the other thing about vat meat is, it can also produce hot dogs that don’t have icky bits in them.

When I was in high school, we did a lot of building and modification work on the ranch. Building new pens and fences, tearing down an old barn and fixing up another one, etc. I would walk the mile home from the bus stop, and my mother and father would be out working. On the kitchen table would be ten hot dogs, a loaf of bread, mustard and a pan. I would put the hot dogs in the pan to steam while I changed clothes. I would lay out ten slices of bread, mustard them. and add the hot dogs. After I finished my home from school snack, I would go out and work until dark, then do the chores, eat supper, listen to the radio a little and go to bed.

Best hot dogs I ever ate, I got from a little meat market in southeast Missouri. They had a course ground texture, and had a good hot dog taste.

In Colombia I had a grilled sausage made of organ meats, and my friend had one made of cow mammary gland. I liked mine better.