Chow Down, Chow Hound

I’m going to open this with a letter to my younger self:

From a young age, you’re going to notice that you’re different from the other kids. Not because you were gay, or because sang in the shower — which isn’t that abnormal in a normal, private shower, but listening to your prepubescent voice crack on the belt in Defying Gravity was not how the rest of your PE class wanted to spend the chlorine rinse in the locker room showers — No. You weren’t just weird relative to other little boys, you were weird relative to other human children. It’s because you ate dog treats. And still do. Often.

For context:

Around the time I started getting an allowance, a dog treat stand opened up at the farmer’s market in my neighborhood. They had a clever sales hook: their dog treats were safe for humans to eat, and that blew my mind. I was eight years old and up until that point in my life, I lived on the principle of the separation of species.

They operated from the idea that any food you buy for your dog should be healthy enough for you to take a nibble out of their bowl. It’s very economic when you think about it. However, a catchy marketing slogan like this could be considered “predatory advertising” to any curious children with a sudden liquid influx of cash and a total lack of financial literacy.

I bought dog treats until my parents bought a leash to keep me away from the farmers market unsupervised. Eventually, they had to take action. I was extremely constipated.

Gut issues come with the territory of eating food made for a different biological species. Dogs can’t digest wheat flour, so most human grade dog treats are made with oat flour and then flavored/congealed into a dough with lots and lots of peanut butter. Essentially, this translates to bricks of peanut protein entering the body and never being pooped out as the dry, dry biscuits suck all of the moisture out of the intestinal walls. I had put a cork in my sphincter, and the peanut butter protein buildup was giving me a condition I previously didn’t know existed — the peanut butter sweats. It’s like the meat sweats, only instead of having the body odor of a factory farm, you smell like the continental breakfast of an interstate motel on it’s second day out in the lobby.

Were the dog treats tasty? Surely there was some reason I was putting my body through enough to warrant an intervention with my parents. They were not. I would have probably gotten a better nutritional content and more flavor from licking the sawdust off the floor of a woodshed. I stopped.

It turns out that it’s more of a compulsion than I give it credit for.

This past summer I got a job selling organic dog food. I didn’t realize that being around the same types of organic dog treats would be a trigger for me to spiral back into my old ways.

It’s not totally my fault. Dog treat companies have found a new way to manipulate customers: they just advertise the dog food like it’s meant to be eaten by humans. It’s a cleverly deceptive bait and switch. My first day of work, I passed by food labels with words like “Sunday Roast,” “Pumpkin Pie,” “Unsalted Turkey Jerky…” I was at the Thanksgiving dinner table. I reminded myself about the consequences these treats would have for my colon, no matter how well they were marketed.

It’s also worth it to mention that some of the dog treats we carry are categorized as “guilt free.” Guilt free for who? Dogs aren’t self aware enough to develop eating disorders. You can’t count calories without opposable thumbs. It’s a subliminal message to dog owners: “Don’t feel guilty for taking one of your dog’s treats. You’re the one that bought them after all.”

I wouldn’t buy them.

I was told about the 30% off employee discount.

It took one week of working there for me to fall back into my habit of eating dog treats. Often people are shocked when they see me eating them out of the bag like Cheetos. Rarely ever are they impressed when I tell them about the great discount I got them.

I’m honestly a little bit shocked at the flack I receive for it. I could have taken on other dog behaviors that are much more taboo: I could have been known on the neighborhood mail beat as the kid who barks at the mail carriers and nibbles at their ankles if the front door is accidentally left unlocked. The only thing worse than that would be if I had decided to start pooping on the neighborhood lawns. Thank goodness the oat flour left me so constipated that it wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities.

I want to present a case: the keto diet is allowed to exist, free of judgement. My mom does it. I’ve been the captive audience in the kitchen to recipes like Keto Quesadillas, in which the unhealthy, carb-y tortillas are replaced by fried cheddar cheese crisps and used to sandwich a mixture of cream cheese, pub cheese, and Cheez-Whiz — It’s important to mix up cheese food groups in this fat and protein based diet — or Keto Chocolate cake, the only time someone could look at a combination of mayonnaise, unsweetened cocoa powder, and coconut flour and think it to be batter for baking instead of a stool sample. Even midnight snack sips from the grease jar are more acceptable than eating food formulated for dogs and humans. She says that she’s keto “because of her diabetes,” I say that people are out to get me.

So with proper context, I return to the letter.

Life isn’t free of judgement. They also hated Jesus because he told the truth. Maybe someday, people will understand. Until then, chow down, chow hound.