Treat Me Like a Human

Dog food debates are always a bit amusing to me. At their core, the argument seems to be that we should feed dogs the same quality food we give to ourselves.

Now, if folks want to do that, I am all for it. Just be aware that human-quality food is not necessarily good for a dog, nor does it raise the bar very high in terms of health.

In fact, it may actually lower it.

Those raw chicken wings, for example, have probably been soaked in salt water and phosphates in order to to preserve freshness. Dogs cannot process salts very well, and kidneys are generally the first thing to go in an aging dog.

As for all those "raw" and "human-grade" foods, they are not all that pure.

For example, the FDA-approved standard for "mammalian excreta" in rice (i.e. rat shit) is 3 mg per pound, and the FDA-approved standard for "insect filth" in dried beans and peas is 5%.

The standard for peanut butter calls for not an "average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams" and up to an "average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams."

The standard for black pepper is very low: 475 or more insect fragments per 50 grams and 2 or more rodent hairs per the same weight.

To put this into perspective, this means the container of "Fine Malabar Black Pepper" I got at Costco last week (348 grams) could have as many as 3,306 insect fragments in it and 13 rodent hairs and still be FDA-approved.

Wonderful!

But, of course, it's not just rice, beans, black pepper and peanut butter, is it?

Apple Butter has an approved count not only for insect filth and rodent filth, but also for mold (12% or more).

Macaroni and noodle products get the green light with up to 225 insect fragments per 225 grams (i.e. 1 bug per 1 gram of noodle).

But wait, there's more! That same batch of macaroni can also have up to 4.5 rodent hairs in it. Yum!

The list of fun ingredients in human food goes on.

Canned or frozen asparagus should not have more than "10% by count of spears or pieces infested with 6 or more attached asparagus beetle eggs and/or sacs."

Canned beets should not have more than "5% or more pieces by weight with dry rot," and frozen broccoli should not have more than "60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 100 grams."

Wheat should not have more than an "average of 32 or more insect-damaged kernels per 100 grams" and no more than "9 mg or more rodent excreta pellets and/or pellet fragments per kilogram."

Tomato soup and canned tomato products should have no more than an "average mold count" of 40%." Strawberries should have no more than an "average mold count of 45% or more."

You want to talk meat? Great.

Meat, by definition, is coated in crap. Real crap. There's no way to get around it, as the slaughter of animals means that skin, hair, feces and feathers are going to be splattered everywhere as animals are bled, eviscerated, skinned, plucked, sectioned, and ground up. Nor for nothing does every kitchen manual tell you to wipe down surfaces that have touched raw meat -- and to hit cutting boards with bleach.

What about eggs? Well here's a clue: They come from the same hole that the chicken defecates from. Not for nothing are AIDS patients, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems told to cook eggs thoroughly or (better yet) avoid them altogether.

You want to talk fish? Surely they are clean?

Well, maybe not. You see the FDA says Blue Fin and other fresh water herring can contain up to 60 parasitic cysts per 100 pounds of fish, and Red Fish and Ocean Perch are fine if 3 percent or less have pus pockets.

Pus pockets?

Yes, pus pockets. But look at the bright side: You can eat all the Ocean Perch you want at Red Lobster!

Enough abstraction; let's talk about my lunch.

I went to a very good Mexican Restaurant yesterday and had a black bean burrito with a fountain drink.

If I was lucky, the black beans and rice had an FDA-approved amount of insect filth as well as an FDA-approved approved amount of rodent filth.

The tortilla shell was made from flour with real rodent excrement in it (all flour has that), and the tomatoes and peppers are, of course, under investigation for the current Salmonella outbreak.

And, of course, when it comes to restaurants, God himself does not know what was sprayed on those vegetables or whether they were washed before being sliced and served.

The beef in that burrito could have come from anywhere, and since it had been reduced to a shredded brownness, you can bet it was never a piece of prime steak, but was instead pressed trimmings carved from 1,000 cows that were last seen alive in a stun-gun production line in Iowa where cattle blood keeps the floors as slick as a melting polar cap.

On the upside, the stun gun man, and at least half the butchers, were probably illegal aliens, and so too were the folks assembling my lunch.

When the immigration service catches someone at the border trying to sneak it, they code them as EWI's -- Entry Without Inspection.

And, of course, the inspection is a health inspection.

My meal, by the way, was absolutely terrific. I am going back.

No one makes better American food than Salvadorans cooking Mexican, unless it's Pakistanis cooking Italian, or Koreans cooking Chinese.

I am not too worried about my health in places like this. After all, in all the restaurants, the bathroom signs say "Employees Must Wash Hands," before returning to work.

I think that's a nice requirement. Too bad none of the employees speak English.

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