When our family started considering taking a dog – something I had wanted for a long time – we bought some books to find out how we could best take care of the new family pet. My parents had dogs, so I was familiar with the concept of taking care of a canine companion, but we wanted to be sure we knew all that was necessary. And sure enough, there was a lot of information there that I either never knew before, or had forgotten since my childhood.
One of the subjects we came across, was food. You’re not supposed to feed your dog food for humans. I know they’d like to eat what we eat. Because, actually, part of that tv commercial for Kibbles ‘n Bits is true: What your dog would really like, is what you’re eating! (I love that commercial, by the way, when that dog pulls up a chair and sits at the table with the rest of the family. Cute and funny!)
Take chocolate, for instance. That’s like poison for a dog. Not good for him at all. And dogs aren’t supposed to get starch – you know, the stuff potatoes and pasta are made up of – because that’s bad for them too. I read on – there was more good counsel about a dog’s nutrition. And as I read those books, it began to dawn on me that many of the suggestions in the book were just general health and nutrition tips, most of them not for dogs especially – they would look good in a diet book for humans too!
That was years ago. We now have a dog, Ashley, and we try to treat her sensibly, living by most of the wise words we read in those books. We even follow the instruction to watch her weight. But in winter she can’t swim (we have a river nearby, and she loves to swim, but to her disappointment we try not to allow that when it’s very cold), she tends to get a bit heavier. We then promptly adjust her diet, giving her less food.
After we had done that the first time, I thought: Strange – we take excellent care of the dog’s diet and health, but neglect our own! We don’t feed the dog potatoes or pasta, because it makes her fat. We, on the other hand, eat all the potatoes and pasta meals we like, and think it’s normal when we gain weight. That’s ridiculous! It’s exactly the wrong way around! Shouldn’t we watch our own weight and health more carefully? Of course we should! We should be more responsible in our choice of food and other things that determine our health.
And that’s exactly the problem I have with that man who took, I think, McDonalds and Burger King to court. He sued them because they hadn’t informed him that their junk food was bad for him. Partly I agree with him. Yes, the stuff they’ve been serving there hasn’t always been very healthy – and a lot of it still isn’t. And yes, they should have made it clear exactly what was in their food, and how that affects your health. (I never knew, for instance, that sugar was one of the main ingredients of the buns McDonalds uses. That definitely would have made me eat less cheeseburgers!) But – it doesn’t relieve anyone from the responsibility to watch out for his own health, to check what he’s eating and make any diet adjustments necessary for his physical well-being. I mean, even if you don’t know the exact ingredients of the meals they serve at fast food outlets, you can pretty much guess that it might not be wise to say “yes” when asked if they should supersize your meal for you, right? Although I must admit that film-maker Morgan Spurlock’s experiment to live on McDonalds’ food for a month and always say “yes” when asked if he wanted to supersize his meal, was a very interesting one. His doctor was not quite so amused, and he did put on 25 pounds in a month, so I suppose he proved his point: fast food (and especially a lot of fast food) is very bad for your health. I mean, even McDonalds say their food should [only] be eaten as “part of a balanced diet” (as stated in the adverts they put in British papers after Spurlock’s film, “Super Size Me”).
Since the court case I mentioned, fast food chains have been trying to create a healthier image for themselves and their menu options. And they have made at least a few good adjustments, I have to admit. There is a wider selection in salads, you can buy bags of fruit, there’s yoghurt here and there, you can get all kinds of low-carb choices. In short, there’s a lot you can do to prevent your visit to a fast food outlet from being an unhealthy one. (Probably the best way to do that, is skip that visit altogether, but I don’t suppose the masses would want to go so far as to abstain altogether. And to be honest, I have a hard time avoiding them completely as well…)
But there’s one thing you should remember. You can still buy junk food there. You can still get fat by making the wrong choices. You can still ruin your health. And it’s not McDonalds, or Arby’s, or Arctic Circle, or Pizza Hut, or Burger King, or Wendy’s, that’s supersizing people. It’s the people themselves. It’s you and I who make that choice.
So let’s stop treating ourselves worse than dogs, and let’s start feeding ourselves healthily, like we feed our dogs – like the dogs in those books I bought. And let’s start being sensible! I know my body would appreciate it, and I´m sure yours would too.
Now, where are those scales. I have quite a few pounds to lose…
