I purchase high quality dog food for my three dogs and it has struck me that it has at least three virtues-
It is nutritionally complete.
It has a long shelf life.
It is relatively cheap (around $1.00 a pound for the good stuff)
This led me to wonder if such a product would be practical for humans. My main question is whether it is feasible from a nutrition standpoint, and if so whether it would be usefull in famine/emergency situations.
Actually Dog chow is pretty good for humans too. Doesn’t taste the best though unless you use alot of gravy.
:Charlton Heston:
“Cycle 4 is people! It’s PEOPLE!”
:Charlton Heston:
Serious, if you sack a bag of Cycle 4 people just think you have an old dog. if you buy a sack of People Chow for Mature Adults, people will know you’re poor–and that carries such a stigma.
WTF? Clearly, this is a typo.
And this explanation is clearly a post count pad.
It’s called Pop-Tarts.
obviously, by pop-tarts, you mean…Top Ramen.
Even better. Sort of like Gravy Train fro people.
There have been a few threads about this in the past. I actually tried to put together my own people chow mix from commonly available products. I wound up with a mix of Cheerios (knock off brand), roasted soy nuts, and dried fruit, eaten with milk, like cereal. You have a good mix of protein, fat and carbs, vitamin fortification from the cereal, lots of fiber and other nutrients from the milk and fruit.
Trouble was, even though it tasted pretty decent, I got bored with it, even just using it to replace one meal a day. You could take this mix, or a commercialized version of it, grind it and press it into pellets, but it wouldn’t have the mouth appeal of regular food.
My vote goes to peanut butter. 
Well, there is Bachelor Chow. Unfortunatly, it will be another 990+ years before the flavour is made so that it is edible.
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, wrote on this question in one of his prose books (I forget which) and is behind the Dilberito, which is an attempt to make something like this, although looking at the nutritional information (on the pages for each individual flavor), I see it’s great on vitamins and minerals (like a bowl of Total cereal), but a bit off the mark regarding actual nutrients - carbs, proteins, fats (unless I’m misunderstanding what the goal is).
Yes, we’ve done this before. The ‘Human Chow’ thread, which the thread I’ve linked to links to, was a rather interesting project from start to finish.
If nothing else, it established that there would be a market for it.
Dogs don’t eat dog chow because they like it better than other food, they eat it because that’s what we give them. We give it to them because it’s easier (and smarter) to trust a bunch of dog nutritionists to provide a healthy diet for our dogs than to wing it.
Yes, it’s true that dogs probably wouldn’t choose chow over table scraps but the OP’s point still stands. I wouldn’t stop eating regular food and live off of people chow, but I’d certainly buy it if it tasted good. I’d rather eat a bag of nutritious people chow between classes instead of chex mix like I do now.
Thanks for the serious response. I should have been more clear in my original question. To me, a product tbat is nutritionally complete, has a long shelf life, and is cheap, might be preferable to what we now use for famine/hunger releif. I was thinking about humanitarian purposes rather than commercial ones. I suppose I was looking for an answer to the question “Why are people starving in the world?”
In Canada it’s called Kraft Dinner.
Well, there’s Unimix, which is (or was) 50% corn, 30% beans, 10% sugar, and 10% oil. Makes a gruel in water, and is (or was) used a lot in the famine-relief biz.
Don’t forget GORP!
Mmmm…GORP.
When I had the flu and was incapable of keeping down solid food, my parents sent me a six-pack of a beverage called “Ensure”. Tastes sort of like a milkshake. Not cheap, but the label claims it is “nutritionally complete”.
I have heard that, for famine relief, the U.N. uses a lentil-based stew which contains all necessary nutrients, has a long shelf life, and does not violate anybody’s religious taboos.
Hrmmm…what’s with the different name? Did the Canadians think that “Kraft Macaroni and Cheese” isn’t descriptive enough?