The cost of convenience

Although we’re not sure of the details or extent of the massive pet food recall announced by the FDA last week, one thing is crystal clear to me: It’s an industrial food processing problem.

Setting aside my own personal preference for home-prepared diets for people and animals, I can easily acknowledge that packaged convenience foods are, well… convenient. Without processed commercial foods there would be far fewer companion animals, because most of us don’t cook for ourselves, let alone our pets.

But our reliance on these foods carries a price tag that has nothing to do with the cost of a fast food burger or package of instant mac and cheese – or our cat’s kibble. It has to do with the scale of industrial food processing, and with ingredients that are “sourced” rather than hand-selected at the grocery store. It starts with the way we raise livestock, and ends with the way we store food products.

And it touches on almost every cultural hot spot on the way: On class and income. On the structure of the family. On child-rearing and self-care. On whether pets are possessions, family members, or something in between. On the relationship between multi-national conglomerates and the food supply. On cruelty to animals, on agricultural pollution, on the logic of raising and processing foods halfway around the country and then shipping them to the end consumer. On the relationship between medical and nutritional research and industry – human as well as veterinary. On our own lifestyles, and whether the “slow food” movement is really just the domain of the privileged foodies of Berkeley, or the cure for what ails us (if, that is, we had the money and time to take the cure).

I know I just made you roll your eyes. That’s because I see the world through a framework of how it affects my dogs and cats. I don’t deny it. But that framework only serves to give me a path in. It doesn’t blind me to the fact that nearly every issue that I care about in veterinary medicine and animal care has parallels in human health care, too. That my ability to love my dogs and cats is directly related to my ability to empathize with other people. And that seeing those connections has made me more, not less, involved with social and cultural issues that extend far beyond the care and keeping of dogs and cats.

And that’s where this issue brings me, to the place where we no longer grow and cook and eat food, but where we grab a pre-packaged frozen burrito and nuke it at the convenience store while we pay for a can of cat food and a high-caffeine, high-sugar energy drink at the cash register.

Or, if we’re foodies, perhaps buying our holistic, organic can of cat food while gobbling a similarly-nuked organic vegetarian burrito grabbed from the “convenience foods” cooler at the nearest chain “natural foods” supermarket.

I can’t fix any of this. I routinely work 80-hour weeks. I've been known to walk my dogs at 1 AM, and yes, I have and use a microwave oven. I just got back from a trip out of town where I’d have died of happiness to be able to live on takeout pizza grabbed on Austin’s Sixth Street, so I didn’t have to find a restaurant and sit down and order a salad. And I resented every one of the hours I spent shopping for, preparing, and freezing my dogs’ meals so my mom could take care of them while I was gone. I do live in the real world, and I confess, I actually hate to cook.

But all that said, the benefits of feeding your human and animal family members – and yourself – a diet you prepare in your own kitchen, with your own hands, are numerous. The main one is that it returns quality control almost entirely to you. You’re not dependent on where and how “ingredients” are “sourced.” You are barely affected by market variations in the cost of wheat gluten or soy meal. You don’t have to think about packaging, shipping, storing, marketing, or advertising your dinner.

The costs of feeding your human and animal family members a diet you prepare in your own kitchen are few, but they’re formidable. The first is literal cost. Although it’s possible, by planning carefully and shopping wisely, to feed a homemade diet to a pet for a cost not too much greater than that of commercial diets, it’s usually at least slightly more expensive. And if you don’t have the time or the inclination to bargain-hunt, it can be substantially more expensive.

But beyond the cost in money is the cost in time. Shopping, food preparation, and just the luxury of sitting down at the table with an actual meal are often investments in time that we can’t or won’t make. My habit of preparing my pets’ meals in my own kitchen is more than two decades old now, and so ingrained into my life that I barely notice it anymore. But for most of my friends, when I suggest they try homemade pet food, the reaction is the same: I don’t even cook for myself, and you want me to cook for my cat?

So failing the complete redesign of our economy and the realignment of our priorities, what can pet owners concerned about the pet food recall do? Someone else may have already answered this for you, but in case they haven’t, if your pets ate any of the affected foods, take them to the vet and run a simple blood panel and urinalysis to check their kidney function.

And while you’re waiting for the results, ask yourself if you want to go through this again. And what you’d do if the contaminated ingredient had gotten into your fast food burrito, or your child’s. And if maybe you have time to get to the grocery store tonight after all.

Comments

[Gil.]

You know, I was really interested in the answers I got to an email I sent to one of my lists on the subject of this petfood recall. The first words I typed made the point that no one would have to worry about their animals if they didn't feed them convenience foods, yet NO ONE responded to that. I wonder how much it will take for people to realize that some portion of the responsibility for what happens to their dogs when the pet food manufacturers screw up is theirs?

[Lori]

I only discovered the concept of homemade diets for my dogs last year when we adopted our new family member (a cream long-haired miniature dachshund) from a local breeder. At first, I thought the breeder was crazy to spend so much time preparing the food for the dogs in her small breeding operation (she has about dozen dachshunds at any given time). I decided to give it a try though and while it requires as much forethought and planning as the menu and grocery list that I prepare for my family every week, there is intense satisfaction in knowing that they're getting top quality food. I truly believe my older dog is only alive today because we switched him from his horrendous prescription diet to a well-planned homemade diet. We're a busy family just like everyone else, but the one thing we make time for is planning and preparing our meals each week and I think we're all reaping the rewards (both the two-legged and four-legged family members alike)! I can't imagine doing it any other way.

[kabbage]

For a jaw-dropper, listen to this bit from NPR’s Day to Day, when an Ohio State vet school professor describes canned pet food as “pretty much what they’d eat in the wild.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/audioplayer.php?prgCode=DAY&showDate=20-Mar-2007&segNum=10

Gil -- I feed raw and/or home-cooked to my dogs, too, but I think there have been enough concerns over human food supplies in the past year or so to make your supposition that the home-feeders don't have to worry kind of problematic. No, we don't have to worry about this episode, but we do have to worry about the quality of the meat, etc. we purchase unless we grow everything ourselves.

And, Christie, you can always tell your friends that, yes, there are people who barely/rarely cook for themselves who DO cook for their pets. That would be me, for nearly 10 years now.

[Gil.]

Comparing the "concerns over human food supplies" with the current debacle in the pet food industry is putting possibility against grim reality. I find it unbelievable that anyone would say that one is as "problematic" as the other .

Feeding my dog real, raw human grade food is not even remotely as risky as playing Russian roulette with convenience foods. Not even remotely.

[MLO]

Actually, it is part and parcel of the same problem. Industrialization of the food supply is destroying people and pets. There has been an increase in EVERY diet related illness as more processed food has been consumed.

Our pets are the proverbial canaries in the coalmines. I know, I have food allergies and have to watch manufacturers like a hawk. I guarantee that unless you are a food scientist in industry or have the same motivation as those of us on restricted diets, you have no idea what is actually in your "fresh" food - let alone in processed foods.

Many people die every year of food related illnesses that are covered up as other diseases. They really have no respect for anyone's health - just the almighty dollar.

Gil, it is extremely naive to believe otherwise. Visit any allergy listserv. Or join those of us who have had relatives die of any variant of CJD. The food supply as it currently exists kills. If you don't grow your own you cannot be sure that it is safe for you or your animals.

Pax,

MLO

[Carol]

This message is for Lori.. who posted a message 19 March 2007 at 10:24 PM. I have 4 dachshunds and am looking for a homemade diet that I can prepare for them. I would be very interested in what you are feeding yours -- as with your local breeder?