I’ve always liked personal experiment kinds of stories. The weirder the better.
This one made me wince, but drew me in nonetheless.
The headline, situated in a deep pink background, blared: “I Did It: 6 Days of Eating Dog Food.”
Despite the girly background, there was absolutely nothing feminine about it. This was WSJ columnist Anne Kadet spending a week eating dog food. She’d been on a paleo diet for a year and wanted to try dog food to cut costs.
Thoughts wander through my mind as I’m reading her story and feeling vaguely nauseated by it: Have personal stories gotten out of hand? Do we require that much more — eating dog food — to shock and hold our interest? Is this woman insane? Will her teeth be broken by the end of the week from all that intense crunching? Can dog food actually hurt humans?
Kadet takes readers through a 6-day journey of eating dog food and even biscuits on the go. Dog biscuits, not the buttery flaky kind.
At one point her mother says, “Don’t forget to walk yourself.”
So she does: “to the local PetSmart, which is dog food heaven. There are four aisles of kibble and canned, not to mention an astonishing array of snacks — bacon chews, dried sweet potato slices, deer antlers. It’s all very tempting and a bit overwhelming. I explain my situation to a clerk, who steers me to store’s high-end house canned brand, Simply Nourish. There’s a chicken and beef stew, a tuna pasta casserole, even a chicken and carrot bisque with pumpkin and quail egg. I’m impressed.”
Among the funnier lines: “Around 1 p.m., I get excited for lunch. Then I remember … dog food. It’s a bit like going to call a friend and realizing he is still dead.”