Convenience

Everyone is selling convenience. That’s the most valuable commodity around. If you can find a way to make someone’s life easier, then you can sell them anything.

I’ve decided to start feeding my dog real food. I almost slip every time and say human food. As if chicken, beef, rice, sweet potatoes, and vegetables (the main items of his diet now) are only made for us. He’s getting older, he’s 13, and I think real food might expand his horizon and longevity. If it works for me, why wouldn’t it work for him?

The impetus for this decision came as I observed him devouring a frozen beef femur the other night. For hours he laid outside on his blanket with it and sucked everyone ounce of bone marrow and life force he could out of that bone. Watching him gave me the sense that he needed real food. And that’s when my decision was made.

But it made me question why I even give him kibble to begin with. Why do I feed my dog pellets of processed food? What am I actually buying? Because I can buy and cook food for my dog if I want to. So it’s not actually food that I’m buying. It’s not some special formula like they want you to believe. When has fortified processed food every proven to be better for your health than actual food? Never.

I’m really just buying convenience. I’m paying someone else for the convenience of not having to shop, cook, clean, and plan for my dog. I’ve outsourced that responsibility.

The company wins. They get paid. I win. All I have to do is remember to order food, and scoop a few cups of kibble into his bowl each day. The only loser is my dog who’s left to eat what my fiancee calls “food with no life force.”

Looking at it from the view of dog owner to dog, the decision to give my dog processed food seems straight forward. The juice, giving him real food, is not worth the squeeze, shopping, cooking, cleaning, planning. Despite how much we love our animals we can’t deny the fact that we view them as lesser, even if by a tiny margin. Which is why they don’t get all the perks and luxuries new give ourselves. Whether that’s real food, or that big expensive procedure. It’s just easier and understandable not to.

But I wonder if that’s why we, humans in modern civilization, eat so much processed food. Convenience, cost, time, energy, yes. But is that the only reason? Or is it also because we don’t think highly enough of ourselves to warrant taking the time to plan, shop, and cook our meals? Do we think we’re not worth the extra cost, time, and effort? We know the benefits of eating real food, and the consequences of eating processed food, so why is 70 percent of the American diet made up of processed food?

I don’t actually know if that’s the case or not, clearly. And I know that for many people in this world that it is way more complicated than I’ve made it seem. But for many of us, it’s probably not that complicated, and we could feed ourselves better with very little impact to our lives, and I’m fascinated by why we don’t.