Vienna Sausages

This musing has been sparked by a morning radio show. Thanks a lot, Jeff Matthews!

When I was little, I used to love Vienna Sausages. Being the redneck family that we were (are?), we called them Vy-eenie sausages; presumably because nobody in my family has ever heard of a place called Vienna.

Anyhoo, Vy-eenies are the kind of food that everyone ate as a kid, but nobody wants to admit to eating as a grownup. I can't remember how old I was when I last ate one (straight out of the can, mind you. No warming, plates, or utensils required), but it must have been sometime around the age when one starts to question exactly what's in a sausage.

I don't know about you, but I don't like to mix different animals in one meal. The whole chicken cordon bleu thing screws me up because you're mixing pig and chicken in one bite. Something about that isn't right. Pigs and chickens don't really kick it together in life, so why should we make them do so in death?

All that to illustrate that something that has the following listed as ingredients should not be. Also, meat should not be forced to form a batter. I'm freakin' sorry.(from wikipedia):

Meats, such as chicken, beef, and pork, are finely ground and mixed with salt and spices, especially mustard, and formed into a batter, which is poured into a long casing and smoked. The sausages are cooked, chopped into equal size segments, and placed into tins or jars, usually without the casings, and, with broth or brine added, processed the same as other canned goods.

Another thing--meat in a can. Let's not. Meat shouldn't be canned under any circumstances. That's another red flag right there.

Anything that has slime on the top of it like cat food probably isn't something parents should feed their children if they really love them. Maybe our parents didn't love us or maybe they just didn't know any better. But seriously though, if you open up a can of MEAT and theres slimy gel goo on the top of it, have the common sense to throw it out. Don't feed it to Junior. How would one NOT know better?