Welcome
Save a Pig!
Vegetarian bratwurst lovers in Wisconsin come together for one glorious day of soy gluttony during Memorial Day weekend every year for the World’s Largest Vegetarian Brat Fest!
Welcome, Brat Enthusiasts!
Here in Wisconsin, we love our brats.
However, we also love our pigs, our environment, and our bodies!
The World’s Largest Vegetarian Brat Fest, held alongside the World’s Largest Brat Fest, is Wisconsin’s healthy and humane alternative to the annual public gorging of almost 200,000 meat-based brats (that’s 120 million calories, by the way) at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.
Join us for this festival of compassion! We’re pretty certain that once you try one of our Tofurky brats, you’ll never want a greasy, meaty, high-fat brat again.
So why have a vegetarian brat instead of a meat-based brat? There are many reasons.
The first reason: Compassion
Pigs, the animals from who the infamous bratwurst come, suffer greatly in confined animal feeding operations, also known as “factory farms.” These animals, which have a very sensitive sense of smell, are forced to live in the stench of their own waste in cages so small that they can’t turn around. The stress of confinement can lead to fights and tail-biting among the pigs. Rather than address the confinement, farmers clip their teeth and cut off their tails. They receive no treatment for the pain.
Moreover, pigs are subject to extremes of heat and cold and even more crowded conditions on the long trip to the slaughterhouse. When they arrive, they may not be able to walk and and sometimes must be dragged in to be killed. Stunning before slaughter is not always effective, so the pigs may be merely paralyzed or they may regain consciousness just before they are bled to death. This process is so error-prone that pigs have been boiled alive in scalding tanks.
For more information, click here
The second reason: Environmental Protection
Large hog farms have caused a myriad of environmental problems throughout the country. The following are examples of serious environmental degradation caused by hog farms as documented on the Sierra Club’s website
- About 13% of the domestic drinking-water wells in the Midwest contain unsafe levels of nitrates.
- There are many ways that groundwater, in particular, may be contaminated with nitrates from factory farms including: waste, lagoon seepages, lagoon spills or leaks and the misapplication of manure onto the land.
- In 2001, the EPA forced five hog factory farms to supply bottled water for local residents because activities at the farms had contaminated the local drinking-water.
- One survey of drinking-water wells in North Carolina found that 10% of wells near factory farms have unsafe levels of nitrates—the cause: leaking hog lagoons and hog wastewater sprayfields.
- Residents living near large hog factories may experience higher rates of respiratory problems.
- Many people living near factory farms where hogs are raised cannot open their windows or go outside in nice weather because of the stench.
- Residents near large hog factories may experience headaches, runny noses, sore throats, excessive coughing, diarrhea, and burning eyes more often than people living elsewhere.
- People living as far as two miles away from factory farms where hogs are raised experience symptoms such as bronchitis and shortness of breath at rates similar to those of farm workers.
- Higher levels of tension, depression, anger and fatigue have been found among residents living near large swine factories.
The third reason: Human Health
If the reasons above don’t convince you (so you don’t live close to a large hog farm, eh?) to substitute your meat-based brat with a vegetarian Tofurky brat at our Brat Fest, check this out:
25 grams of fat in one brat. TWENTY-FIVE GRAMS!
Save yourself, the environment, and the pigs by joining us for a free vegetarian brat on Memorial Day weekend.
- Food generously provided by:
- Whole Foods
- Tofurky
Brought to you by The Alliance for Animals · © 2006 - 2008