I will add I would personally much rather eat pet food that what some people consider human food and pay good money for it. One instance is hot, spicy food. It is an agression on my senses that I do not understand how anyone would eat such stuff voluntarily. And yet people pay good money at restaurants for such stuff. Another is durian which has a smell so foul and strong it is forbidden at hotels and other public places in Asia. The taste is something like a mixture of decomposed meat and vomit and I cannot even smell it without gagging. And yet they are flown from Asia to London where people pay good money for it. If my choice was between durian and pet food I’d take the pet food every single time.
At any rate, the fact that someone did something is not evidence that he was forced to do it by circumstances. People do all sorts of things which I would not do and that does not mean they were forced to do it.
I believe it was Al Gore who mentioned he knew an old woman who had to eat pet food so she could afford her medicines and the story was proven false shortly after.
At any rate, poor people, who are forced to eat dog food suffer no long-term effects although they do, however, have a strange attraction to fire hydrants.
I’ve eaten durian and loved it. It tastes more like “eating strawberries in a public toilet” than vomit.
Anyway, to the OP. When my father was a student in the 1960s, he worked on building sites in London during the vacation. Several of the West Indian immigrants who were working with him used to share a single can of dog food, as a filling for sandwiches.
Just for clarification, I was interested in discovering if eating pet food was or is something poor people felt forced to do as their best alternative to starvation. My question was, IS it really the cheapest way? What factors might influence their decision? Ignorance of nutrition which says you can live on a vegetarian diet? Or are there other factors – one of which, the lack of cooking facilities in the case of homeless people – seems to make at least a little sense. In the work of fiction I mentioned, Woman on the Edge of Time, the scenerio is presented that the mother is desperate and economics forces her to buy pet food in a quest to provide her daughter with meat. She most definitely feels the meat is needed in the diet. The daughter won’t eat it, though, leading to a major crisis of the novel. Well anyway, as I said, that’s what got me thinking about the issue – is this a popular myth incorporated into fiction because it sounds plausible, or does it really and truly happen?
Also in posing the question I really didn’t consider the mentally ill, who might because of their illness do anything. I was trying to discover if rationally thinking humans would really see dog food as an option.
And, gee thanks zuma :rolleyes: … it’s an honest question, and I offered a couple of plausible reasons why it might have been misinformation. How on earth do you expect people to be able to discern “the crap out there” if they don’t investigate something they’ve got doubts about. :shrug: Maybe I’m just not as smart as you.
You can buy cans of vegetables, soup or other food for under 50 cents and the provide a couple of good servings each. here’s nutrition information for ravioli and other cans: http://www.chefboy.com/story/nutrition.htm
Now show me pet food does substantially better.
I don’t know that zuma’s comment was necessarily directed at you, Ellen. Personally, I have found many of the responses here frustrating and unworthy of the SDMB. It’s OK to ask if it’s an urban legend, but it’s not OK to insist that it is without providing a shred of evidence to refute the posted cites.
Of course most desperately poor people are ignorant of their nutritional needs. I’m ignorant of my nutritional needs, which is why I haven’t attempted to address that part of the discussion. People in this situation don’t sit down and do a cost-benefit analysis of their nutritional needs vs. the nutritional content of various foods vs. cost. Their bodies ask for animal protein and they respond in the only affordable way they know.
There is plenty of protein in Chef Boyardee’s pasta, in so-called cheese singles, in hot dogs which sell for 85 cents a pound and in many other cheap foods. If after seeing that someone goes for pet food he can’t tell me he was “forced” to eat pet food. If his body prefers pet food that is another issue but he was not “forced”.
No one has shown any evidence showing eating pet food is a much cheaper way of meeting your nutritional needs. The rest is anecdotes and anecdotes do not prove anything except the anecdote.
I think I was the only one using the term “urban legend,” which is why I thought zuma was coming down on me for having the audacity to pose the question.
Sailor, your chef Boyardee link requires some outlandish internet plugin to work. Could you perhaps quote the data ? As far as I recall, ravioli costs about $1.50 a for a 14 oz can.
Here’s the analysis for Meow Mix:
http://www.epinions.com/content_43762683524
Meow Mix looks like a good low fat protein source. It sells for under a dollar a pound, and is also loaded with ALL the vitamins and minerals that cats ever need. The same can not be said for ravioli, which, at a minimum, contains unhealthful levels of sodium. If you mix a good dry cat food with a few fat laden 80 cent/Lb hot dogs (shudder) and some old bread or rice, you’d probably have an inexpensive but balanced diet. Cheap junk food does not deliver that.
Squink, I do not know that I would call Shockwave outlandish. It runs fine for me. At any rate, a serving (2 per can) has 7 g fat and 10 gr protein. A serving of such pasta fits perfectly in a balanced diet.
I do not know where you do your shopping but I can guarantee you I can find Chef Boyardee’s in the DC area for under 60 cents. Now, if you are homeless and want to live in Beverly Hills, that’s another issue but pet food is also going to cost much more there.
Hotdogs, cheese, eggs and other products have high protein content and are not more expensive than pet food.
The analysis of cat food you give does not look like a healthy diet for a person at all and you can get healthy diet without resorting to pet food. You can get all the protein you need from hot dogs, cheese and many other products which are under $1 a pound. Any savings from eating pet food would be very marginal if they even existed. I challenge anyone to show otherwise.
>> If you mix a good dry cat food with a few fat laden 80 cent/Lb hot dogs (shudder) and some old bread or rice. . .
Oh gimme a break. Suddenly we need a medically supervised diet here like the person is in the hospital. Look, I buy low fat turkey franks all the time and they are pretty healthy. Or are you telling me they only way to a healthy diet is either pet food or really expensive food? That is ludicrous. A healthy, balanced diet can be had as cheaply as you want. The idea that cheap food is unhealthy is plain silly. Expensive food can be unhealthy and you can find all sorts of healthy, cheap food. Fruits, vegetables, cereals, pasta, etc and you can have a very healthy diet for the least amount of money. Buying pet food is not going to make it better.
Well, we’re already insisting that “force” is only operant if those eating pet food have no other rational choice. If you want rational, you need to look at nutrition.
On the basis of the fat content alone:
[/quote]
a serving (2 per can) has 7 g fat and 10 gr protein
[/quote]
The cat food is a more rational choice of food.
Of course if you want to accept that people are forced into doing things for non-rational reasons you may continue with the whole “pet food -> Icky” thing you’ve got going here. Is this a libertarian hangup or what ?
sailor, instead of taking the word “force” so literally, why don’t you consider it in the way it was probably meant. If we rewrite the question as “Have people resorted to eating pet food because they were hungry and poor?” does that change your response?
I suppose you all can continue debating whether eating dog food is a good choice considering the nutritional value and the price. The fact that reasonable people with access to limitless information can disagree demonstrates the likelihood that a reasonable person who is poor and desperate might make a rational decision to eat dog food.
Which of course is vastly different from eating cold soup out of a can and surfing the 'net. :rolleyes:
>> wasting her time and money ordering pizza and watching movies on TV.
>> Which of course is vastly different from eating cold soup out of a can and surfing the 'net.
The difference is I pay for my own habits and she was on welfare living off other people’s work. Yes, it is vastly different. if she pays for her expenses she can do whatever the fuck she pleases but when the government has given you an expensive house with the condition that you get your act together and find a job and a year later you are sitting on your fat ass eating pizza and watching movies, then I have a problem with welfare programs that allow that kind of thing.
>> If we rewrite the question as “Have people resorted to eating pet food because they were hungry and poor?” does that change your response?
No, it does not. As I have shown, the reason they did it cannot be found in the fact that they were poor but maybe in the fact that they were crazy, or ignorant or stupid. Other poor people can and did make better choices so it is not being poor that made them do it.
You haven’t “shown” this at all. You’ve merely stated repeatedly that you believe this, and then engaged in semantic games to try and force the reality of poor people eating pet food into something that fits with your preconceived notions.
This just means that being poor is not necessary and sufficient to cause people to eat pet food. It says nothing about whether or not being poor is a factor in people choosing, or having, to eat pet food. If you want to make the case that being poor does not force anyone to eat pet food, you need to look at all the affected groups. Holding up a stereotypical welfare gal and saying that she doesn’t have to eat cat food tells us absolutely nothing about the fixed income grannies with big monthly medical bills.
The anecdotal evidence says it happens. Your highfalutin social theory says it doesn’t. When observation and theory conflict, it’s the theory that needs to defend itself. You haven’t done that. -And if you do, it belongs in great debates, or more likely, MPSIMS.
Ellen Cherry, thanks for recalling Woman On the Edge of Time, the greatest feminist SF novel ever. It managed to both create a feminist utopia (with a contrasting male supremacist dystopia), and call into question psychiatric practices too. It was radical as hell and bound to piss off a lot of stodgy conservative types, but it sure is thought-provoking. Not only that, it was a well-written, tightly plotted adventure story. A classic from the mid-1970s.
It may interest some of you to know that the Progressive Majority currently has a campaign to send 5,000 dog biscuits to Chimp in the White House, to protest the lack of funding for prescription drugs for seniors, who may face a choice between dog food and their medicine as a result. Whether anyone actually has to eat dog food or not, it’s a nice bit of agitprop.
>>As I have shown, the reason they did it cannot be found in the fact that they were poor
>> You haven’t “shown” this at all. You’ve merely stated repeatedly that you believe this, and then engaged in semantic games to try and force the reality of poor people eating pet food into something that fits with your preconceived notions.
squink, we have gone as far as we can here and we are not adding anything new. I have shown cheap food for humans is not more expensive than pet food and so, food prices are not the reason anybody eats pet food.
I will note that when Al Gore made up the story of the old woman who supposedly had to eat pet food so she could buy medicines, he was talking about making the medicines more affordable, not making the food more affordable. He could have chosen any other expense like clothing but the image of an old woman being forcet to eat pet food was more powerful. Unfortunately for him, he was called on it almost immediately and had to admit the whole thing was made up.
I do not know of anybody who is suggesting that if food were cheaper people would not need to resort to eating pet food. Liberals are using this invented image to try to pass programs to lower prices on drugs and other stuff but NOT on food which would seem the obvious thing to do but people who are poor are already entitled to food stamps.
I kinda think sailor has a point. He’s made a pretty convincing case that there are diets of “regular” food that are just as cheap as petfood, or cheaper.
I agree that there is room to debate over what “forced” means, but it seems to me that someone is “forced” to do something when he or she has no other meaningful choice.
Apparently, people who eat petfood do have other meaningful choices, generally speaking.
No, you’ve shown that some human food-like substances approach the low price of animal feeds. I chose Meow Mix as an example not for its low price, but because the nutritional analysis is available online. There are far cheaper brands available. For example, here’s a 27 pound bag of Purina Dog Chow for 11.99. That’s still a name brand. I doubt that you can name a less expensive, yet still nutritionally balanced human food. Even the more expensive choices you’ve proposed, fail to meet basic nutritional requirements. That failure means that if you eat your expensive high salt, high fat diet for too long you will get sick. The “choice” you offer; pet food, or illness, is a false one. If people are forced to choose between these alternatives, then they are forced to eat pet food.
Ideological theorizing aside, all the evidence points to the image being a real one. Are you trying to argue that the stories can’t be true because, if they were, they’d have political and social consequences ? That’s not a valid point. By assuming your conclusion (invented image) you seriously undermine whatever legitimacy your argument may have made. It’s like arguing vouchers with a libertarian, or plate tectonics with a commie. There’s just no point
