Potatoes are about $3.50 for a five-pound bag, and carrots are super-cheap, too. So, why pay $23 a pound for dog food that is mostly composed of those cheap vegetables – more per pound than the cost of filet mignon? Are you a sucker? Are you saving the Earth? Why would you buy dog food in little individual pre-packaged plastic cups that are heading straight for the landfill? Aren’t you against using petrochemicals to make all that dump-bound single-use plastic? Hipsters need to answer a lot of questions.
There are people in the Republic of the Congo who spend an entire day carving out a wooden wheel for their homemade scooters with a machete. When you shell out $23 a pound for potatoes for your mutt, don’t you feel just the slightest bit guilty? Do you know how far $23 goes in the Congo? About two weeks of expenses. For a human family. Not eight tiny snacks for a single canine the size of a small squirrel.
Here’s an experiment: Put a potato on a plate, and a hunk of filet mignon on another. Ask your dog what he likes. Then ask him about a carrot versus a big pile of pig lips. Try a bowl of organic kale vs. 60-cents-a-pound dry dog food. Let him choose. Then you can start saving money.
How would you feel if you would kill for a big, juicy half-pound bacon triple cheeseburger, and someone threw down a plate of tofu every time you chowed down? You would eat it or die. But you also might consider eating the baby’s face off when Mom goes out to gab with the neighbor.
The Doggone Cost
Let’s start with the price tag. Vegan, or mostly vegan, dog food always comes with a hefty price tag compared to traditional offal-based options. You’re paying a shitload extra to feed your dog a glorified salad in a bag. It makes you feel good…maybe even kindof special like Greta. But how does Fido feel?
The high cost of vegan dog food can be attributed to many factors. Let’s break these down to six easy reasons so you can understand why vegan dog food always comes with an unbelievable price tag:
Specialized Ingredients:
Vegan dog food is formulated with expensive hippie plant proteins such as pea protein, lentils, and quinoa. Rover would much rather chow down on some cold, un-emptied intestines as opposed to that hot, steaming bowl of butternut-squash polenta you so lovingly prepared.
Formulation and Research:
Pet food manufacturers are supposed to ensure that the product provides all the essential nutrients dogs need. Do they actually do it? Companies of all kinds have a long history of cutting corners to save a buck. You probably don’t remember when the executives of a baby-food company sold fake apple juice to infants. Think dog-food companies would always act differently?
Quality Control:
Ensuring that each batch meets the supposed nutritional requirements requires rigorous quality control, adding to production costs. Just canning up a couple of tons of the guts of minced Kentucky Derby failures will give Fluffy all the nutrition he needs.
Smaller Market Size:
Vegan dog food caters to a low-IQ-better-than-thou niche market with the characteristic of having a lot more money than sense. This means lower profit compared to the mass-produced food a dog should be eating, like portions you shovel out of a 50-pound bag of ‘Ol Roy.
Hell, even if you buy the high-priced sensitive-skin version of the dry dog food, Rover will still prefer it over a load of green peas. At least they throw in some rice to help you endure the shame of letting other people see that you feed Max dry dog food. You know how hard that giant bag is to hide in your cart when you check out:
Nosy Karen In Line: “Harrumph…you feed your dog dry?”
You (nervously): “Well, yeah…but this one has rice in it!”
Premium Branding:
Many vegan dog food brands position themselves as luxury products, which brings out the suckers in droves. Vegan dog food also satisfies the snob longings of proles who can’t afford $600 Dolce & Gabbana tee-shirts. A social-climber will appear at the cash register with $23 for a few ounces of overpriced shredded dog potatoes. Makes no difference that the potatoes were rejected from the human food chain for potato blight. This will help them achieve a lot of the same snooty aura that modeling a snazzy new pair of Louis Vuitton shoes would accomplish.
Supplement Inclusion:
Since potatoes and carrots have almost no nutritional value, vegan dog food usually requires the inclusion of a huge amount of expensive supplements which will barely keep the unfortunate recipients alive. A bargain truckload of chopped pig brains already has all the nutritional content a dog needs.
Ethical Concerns
Now, let’s talk about the ethical aspect. Many proponents of vegan dog food argue that it’s a more humane choice because it doesn’t contribute to the meat industry’s cruelty. The intention may seem noble. The reality is much easier to understand for anyone who works for a living, and has to go through life without the benefit of a trust fund or ‘disability’ payments.
The meat used in commercial dog food usually comes from parts of animals that are not used for (American) human consumption. By purchasing the old-style dog food, you’re not contributing to an increased demand for meat. However, you might possibly be diverting some luxury foods that were headed for southeast Asia.
Environmental and Carbon Impact
Many vegan dog food ingredients are imported from countries on the other side of the world. In those far-flung hellholes, a three-dollar bribe is considered an excellent way to enhance your pay. So organic and purity ‘certifications’ come awfully fast as the rubber stamps fly.
The shoe-less, hard-working foreign farmer knows he is sending food to a crazy, magical place where people have enough money to raise dogs as opulent geegaws, instead of eating them as part of an everyday human diet. He might want to wet his wick a little with some age-old corruption.
All that trans-oceanic shipping adds a huge amount to the carbon footprint. There is no need to import organic fonio from Africa for dog food when there are plenty of perfectly edible dead cows lying around in this country that your dog is drooling to get his chops into.
The Taste Test
Don’t forget the most crucial factor – taste. Dogs have a strong preference for meat-based diets, because they’re really carnivores at heart. It’s in their DNA to crave the taste of animal flesh.
It’s essential to recognize that most dogs crave some huge gobs of fresh meat they just obliterated in in a delirious blood-fest. Particularly if they participated in the kill as part of a lovable pack of howling, yipping, growling, sniffing, scratching, meat-craving scavengers.
Why should you think you are smart enough to judge what un-natural meals your dog should have? Dogs love to gobble down a steaming pile of human shit (after they roll in it) if you give them a stab at it. That should let you know that you are distinctly unqualified to judge that Spot would enjoy the hell out of a steady diet of kale and cauliflower.
You probably didn’t think about any of this when you saw that cute puppy on the front of that $23 per pound package of potatoes. You already eat a high-priced vegan diet because you want to save the Earth and talk about it a lot at the gym. So why is vegan food not right for FooFoo? Because he wants meat — he needs meat. And lots of it.