This question has occurred to me a time or two and I’ve nearly decided it must be some sort of urban legend. I was reminded of it again not long ago when re-reading Woman on the Edge of Time, a novel by Marge Piercy, in which a poor Hispanic woman tries to get a little meat into the system of her neglected daughter by feeding her canned dog food. The story was written and possibly set in the 1970s. It has a ring of truth, somehow, because it seems we’ve always heard of these terrible cases, elderly people living on Social Security, that sort of thing.
Several things lead me to think nobody would really buy pet food in desperation. One, isn’t it awfully expensive? How could a can of Alpo be a better choice than a can of tuna for a meal?
Secondly, the taste. I mean come on – even if you were poor and “forced” to eat a vegetarian diet (which you can live quite healthily on, by the way), something tells me that you’d probably spend your buck on a burger rather than gag down wet, gloppy, poopy smelling dog food or wet, gloppy, fishy smelling cat food and consider your dietary needs met.
Third, though it seems these stories emanated from the 1970s or before, weren’t there food stamps around even then? Who would be starving enough to resort to pet food when the government is handing out grocery money? Arguably, some poor people might in those early days been unaware of the benefits, or too proud to pursue them.
Am I blind to the desperate lengths people might go to, or might HAVE gone to, to eat meat? Or am I right in thinking this is a sad sob sorry that’s been passed around for decades to make people squirm in their own wealth?
Alpo is around 5 cents/ounce while tuna is between 16 and 45 cents per ounce with an eyeball average of about 24.
I really don’t think the idea is that distasteful anyway - people have and do eat things alot worse than dog food when starving. Plus I think my doggie’s eukanuaba smells pretty good.
It’s just a bit of hyperbole that gets spouted from time to time in debates about welfare, social security, or prescription drugs. I can’t remember ever reading a credible cite documenting a case of dog-food eating by humans that wasn’t in someway linked to mental illness.
Are you really surprised that there are people poor enough and hungry enough to eat whatever they can get their hands on? I’m always amazed at how isolated people are in their comfortable existences. Hunger and poverty were not invented by liberals to push their agenda.
I assume your question only pertains to hunger in the United States. A quick search found:
According to the USDA, 10% of US households did not have access to enough food. Cite with links.
This document (warning: PDF) contains summaries of a number of government-funded studies on hunger. See “Practices Used by Limited-Resource Audiences To Maintain Food Security” (p. 7), which includes:
There are a number of reasons why poor people do not get food stamps and food from other government sources. First of all, there were huge cuts in the federally funded programs in the '80s and again in 1996.
Second Harvest did a detailed national survey of their network of emergency food providers. Of those who received food from them, 30% received food stamps, showing that the amount of food provided by this program is probably inadequate. Of those who did not receive food stamps, 37% believed that they were not eligible (though some actually were); 34% found the program too difficult to apply for, and 7% didn’t apply because of the stigma.
By the way, Ellen. if it’s sounds like I was attacking you in my last post, I didn’t mean to. You seem to be sincere in asking this question.
We had an elderly neighbor on a fixed income that was on a number of medications. She became very ill one time (flu or something) so my wife and I dropped by to take care of her. We did the normal things, took care of the lawn, cleaned the house, washed dishes (mostly spoons and glasses), etc. While I was taking out the trash, I noticed she had a number of cans of empty cat food and my wife found a number of cans of unopened cat food in the pantry and little else. She had no cat.
From then on, we dropped by with extra food and replenished her pantry periodically. We never asked her about it and she never volunteered any information, but to us it seemed rather obvious.
I find it hard to believe that dog food is the cheapest option for food available assuming you have to scrounge to eat. I have a dog and while it costs more to feed me in a month she isn’t all that cheap either (worth every penny though).
Tuna probably isn’t a good example but I practically lived on Ramen sometimes in college. Does it provide all my nutritional requirements? Almost certainly not but it kept hunger away and at the time I could get 5 for $1. I would also imagine hot dogs might be down there on the list and its probably worse for you than dog food.
Horseflesh,
Wow what a thread. Even our humble moderator wasn’t immune. I live in Manhattan and always speak to homeless people but don’t think I ever really ran into someone that would become a future straight doper.
…was another of those left-wing propaganda pieces popular in the Reagan era. A reporter for the NY Times actually confessed to writing a totally fictitious piece about a poor old woman who had to live on dog food-it turned out to have been a total fabrication (a “pipe job” -in the reporter’s parlance).
But on to the actual question: prepared dog food should be OK to eat-it has been scientifically formulated , and probably is better for you that a diet of big macs…a few years back, a couple of NYC college students subsisted on dry dogfood for several months-prepared with lots of garlic salt, it was actually pretty tasty!
I remember one of our sensationalist “Current Affairs” type programs once ran a segment on a guy who claimed he was so poor that he was forced to eat dogfood. They broadcast shots of him sitting down and tucking in to a can of Pal. However, it was obviously set up and not very credible.
Just did a quick check of comparative prices: a can of Pal dogfood works out at $2.44/kg. A comparable sized can of Harvest Irish Stew works out at $5.80/kg.
As an aside, when I was a kid I bet one of my friends a dollar that he wouldn’t eat a spoonfull of dog food. He collected the dollar. Which just goes to show that there aren’t many things people won’t do for money.
Cite required. I’ll help you out. The following are the articles that have appeared in the NYT mentioning elderly people eating dog food:[ul][li]Felicia R. Lee, “Fear of Hunger Stalks Many Elderly,” November 16, 1993. (about a national study on hunger among the elderly done by the Urban Institute).[/li][li]Crystal Nix, “A Special Problem of Elderly Victims,” November 16, 1986. (about elderly victims of crime; the men in the article had had their Social Security checks stolen)[/li][li]Edward R. Welsh, “Shut-Ins’ Plight: Isolation and Neglect,” October 19, 1980. (an editorial by a local Long Island official who is advocating for more volunteers for charities)[/li][li]Cyril F. Brickfield, “Dog Food’s Out, Myth’s In,” October 11, 1980. (an editorial stating that while there is no corroboration for claims that elderly people in '60s were eating dog food, inflation of the '70s has led to many living in poverty)[/li][/ul]Obviously, none of these fit the story you claim appeared.
In any case, there are millions of hungry people living in the United States, and many of them turn to eating dog food as a cheap source of protein. It’s a documented fact, not a liberal conspiracy.
If you think poor people eating dog/cat food is bad, take a look at what homeless street people eat. About two years ago here we had the city come through and remove dozens of little huts and camp sites (and consequently the residents of them) in a city park after it was found out that they were killing and eating geese, stray dogs, cats, and pretty much anything else they could get their hands on.
Lots of people have probably been short grocery money for a few days or a week, and wouldn’t resort to eating pet food in those circumstances… but when you have almost no money at all for years on end, it’s not too difficult to envision a person cutting their costs and surviving on dog food.
I was thinking of the same story, Motog. Our current affairs shows are about as reliable as The Onion as a serious news source, and most of their stories seem to be sensationalised crap including this one. If I remember rightly, he was on a pension and complaining that he couldn’t make ends meet on his $350 a month. Considering that thousands of young people on unemployment get by on $300 a month or less and don’t have the same entitlements to pensioner’s discounts, I have very little sympathy for him. I also can’t understand why he couldn’t afford to buy Savings Brand Tuna instead of Pal* Dog Food, but that’s one of life’s mysteries I guess. The show was insinuating that soon all our pensioners would be forced to eat pet food because they aren’t being paid enough to live on.
Pal’s a name brand dog food. It’s certainly not the cheapest on the market.
I don’t have the cite, but two years ago, the City of Boston tried to help the drunks and panhandlers. The city had a program, where in stead of giving cash to homeless people, you could purchase chits that were only good for food!
Guess what? A market swiftly sprang up, whereby you could trade your food chits for booze!
Goes to show you, most of the “homeless” are drunks.