In a famous 1980's advertising campaign for the fast food chain Wendy's, the late character actress Clara Peller uttered this startling question about a competing chain's burgers: "Where's the beef?"
If you're visiting Walt Disney World and taste their hot dogs, you'll soon find yourself asking that same question.
Disney World is no longer offering all-beef hot dogs in its parks, opting for a beef-and-chicken mix instead. This decision, immediately placed into effect this week, was first reported by former Orlando Sentinel food critic Scott Joseph on his blog.
Disney has not yet released an official statement regarding the alteration to the recipe, but Joseph speculates that cutting costs was a factor in this measure.
Reaction to this change is mostly negative. Many Disney bloggers posted on Twitter that they felt Casey's Corner, a restaurant in the Magic Kingdom specializing in quarter-pound hot dogs, would never be the same.
"The Dogs are now Chicken mixed with beef. CHEAP MOUSE!" wrote Carol Alfonso, @caa1000 on Twitter.
Comments on Theme Park Insider suggest that guests might avoid the hot dogs in the future due to health reasons associated with eating processed foods.
"Not an issue for me, but there are some people that can only eat all beef," said David Graham, a member of Theme Park Insider. "My nephew was one or he would get sick. Don't understand it, but not a Dr. either. This might cause an issue for people like him and others rethinking eating in the park?"
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Comments
Wow, I'm glad you posted this! My husband is allergic to chicken meat (weird, I know) so he would be in deep trouble if he ate a Disney hot dog without knowing.
Good find Mike
Sounds to me as there will be many law suits if they go with the new recipe.
Thats manslaughter
Their food prices are outrageous as it is, and now their going to cut the quality and probably still increase the price to their customers. Wasn't there just another one of many park admission price increases very recently?? Give us a break Disney!!
;-)
I am sure that this move will not do a thing for the possible rehire of all those laid off or new employees, but it will put more money into the annual bonus for the CEO!
When will people wake up and stop with all the Disney scams?
By the way, what meat packer does Disney Orlando and Anaheim use?
Everything else at Disney World is make believe, why not the food too?
Aren't hot-dogs made of lips and s#@% ?
Come on... beef, chicken, pork, mutton, tofu, fi fi, barney... can eating one ever really be considered healthy? And if you still wish to pay exorbitant Disney prices for a mystery meat wand... obviously they are not so good for your deductive reasoning and mental faculties either. I'm sure Disney will post any allergen alerts on their products. If you are so allergic to such things, why even eat processed foods? As far as quality goes, well look around you bud... not even the wealthy can afford that nowadays.
But no-one has to eat `all beef`. That's nonsense. He might be allergic to some of the stuff in the not-all-beef product, but there's nothing magical that happens when you add something to a beef burger/hot dog that suddenly makes it harmful.
You people are retarded if you think the amount of business they'll lose because the "people can only eat beef". What tiny fraction of those people exist in this world, and how many of them eat hot dogs? I would assume if you have some sort of weird food allergy like that hot dogs would be completely off the menu.
Looks like we have a pretty interesting discussion here.
I'll try to ease the heat here by saying that just as there are people who are allergic to processed foods, there are people who have beef allergies too. There are allergies for all kinds of things. I'm not sure what impact, if any, allergies will have on Disney's hot dog sales, I think the bigger question lies with the issue of quality.
In response to Dale's question, I honestly don't know what meatpacker Disney's parks use.
Can't believe the moronic posts I have read so far! I'm pretty sure that some of you have no idea what goes in to a hot dog or any other food product being made. You just make things up or regurgitate what people have said for years! And some of the bulls*it is "veghead" talk. We all know that vegetarians are a "great" source of information on meat.
Hot dog factories have FDA inspectors in them...which means they inspect the meat being used. No one uses "mystery parts" anymore, because the back half of the cow is really cheap to buy and process. Most good companies use the front half of the cow, which is what kosher brands use. The cheaper brands buy the back half of that same cow and grind it up for the hot dog. When you start mixing multiple meats together, you never know how much of each meat is being used and some use gluten to bind the different meats...that would be where the allergies come in. They also use different types of spices and that can also trigger allergies.
I rather enjoyed all this, please don't delete any comments, makes a boring day come alive. No one is really hostile here, just making their own statements in each persons unique way. Hot Dog, I really like them, but as all things one has to eat in moderation, and if you know something might actually be allergic enough to kill you then why would it be something you would buy. Such as peanut oil etc. in oriental foods without knowledge ahead of time. You have to know how to choose for your particular situation, and your family. My husband can't eat raw fruits without the possibility of his throat closing due to allergy. So we cook them, or he just doesn't eat them. As one person said, there are binders in most products, and that is where the bulk of allergies would show up, such as gluten. I can eat a burger and know with one bite if it is all meat or has fillers. Taste buds don't lie.
I prefer my hotdogs of the chicken only or veggie variety. The long and short of this is Michael, I appreciate your informative article!!
What a lot of interesting comments. As long as Disney reveals the contents of what they are serving, does it really matter? Now we know, thanks to you, Michael. Keep up the good work writing!
Great article Michael! I fortunately didn't try a hot dog down there last week haha. Anyway, I think so long as Disney is upfront about what they are doing, it is ultimately up to the consumers to figure out if they can/can't or if they even want to eat the things that they are served. I am mainly vegetarian now (I sometimes will have a burger or steak, so I am in NO way, shape or form claiming myself to be a full-on 'veghead'), so this type of thing would be a non-issue to me, but if my kids, who still eat meat, had some sort of allergy to something in that food from Disney, of course, I would be sensible enough to check into it to make sure they couldn't be harmed. Again, it is up to the consumer to watch what they eat, not up to Disney to protect who comes into their parks. Personally, I have always been under the assumption that even all-beef hot dogs had fillers and other parts in them, but I would be willing to accept Rod's statement about that not being true.
Here in Chicago we drown our hot dogs with everything but the kitchen sink so we could care less what the hot dog is made of because we can hardly taste it. Maybe Disney eaters should start to do the same.
We ate at Casey's Corner in August, and the hot dogs were GREAT, as I am sure they will be again when we return in 2010! A hot dog is a hot dog, folks...they aren't hiding anything. They are telling you what it's made of. Go eat elsewhere if it's really that bothersome.
A little ketchup, a little mustard, hey--i think chicken is the ingredient we should be LEAST worried about....we're talking about hot dogs here.
Listen seriously the food is too expensive and not too good anyway.So beef or chicken go eat out of the park.
oh yeah they have good snow cones.
Chicken hot dogs just don't do it for me.I would rather starve.Where's the beef?
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