Confessions of an Agnawstic

A few weeks ago, while my publicist was asking online dog lovers if they might be interested in reviewing my book, he came back with a question:

“Do you recommend Science Diet or raw?” he asked.

“It’s really not an either/or thing,” I said. “The book doesn’t talk about nutrition at all.”

“Well, one of the people we approached said they only write about things from a raw food perspective,” he said.

“Oh, then they don’t want my book,” I said. “It’s just from a dog lover’s perspective.” And that was that. Because here’s the truth, which is going to probably cause a few people’s heads to explode: when it comes to my belief about the omnipotent power of food, I’m an agnawstic.

This belief started, as many things do, with my own experiences with food evangelism: Atkins, paleo, etc, wash, repeat. For one brief, terrifying month my husband dropped down the rabbit hole known as “extreme diets.” Now, I can’t blame him for trying- I’ve tried them too over the years, but he’s never been on board. After years of ignoring my attempts at zoodles, banana “ice cream” and other current food trends on the paleo circuit, he announced one day he was “going keto.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Less that 20 net grams of carbs a day,” he said. “I heard it’s great for detoxing.”

“Did you find this on reddit?” I asked. He didn’t answer.

For the next 30 days, I learned what it is like for someone to be discovering enlightenment. He would follow the kids around the house asking them if they had any idea how much sugar was in their ketchup, pouring verboten salad dressings down the drain, and meaningfully wait until we were all in the room at the same time before turning on “Food Inc” on Netflix.

He preached fire and sugarstone, swallowing almonds with one hand while tossing pretzels in the trash with the other. He was flush with the light, or maybe just a little zany from ketotic acidosis, who knows. He says he felt great. He was online talking to people who gave up dairy, sugar, alcohol, gluten, fruit, potatoes, and on life in general and were now convinced their nuts were causing inflammation when he finally broke and had a fudgesicle. Now we are living a life of moderation together, and it is wonderful.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think the idea of knowing what you are eating, and preparing it yourself, is a mighty fine thing. I try to avoid bread and pasta and sugar in favor of veggies, water instead of soda, but the last two months it was ALL CHOCOLATE AND CHEESE AND WINE and I didn’t feel bad about it at all. I have permission to meander in my choices. Good nutrition matters, but it isn’t the only thing that matters.

Life is balance, right? I eat well mostly and exercise a lot and don’t smoke and try to get enough sleep. Know who else did that? My mom. All my grandparents lived to 90 and she got brain cancer when she was 67 and she did everything right. It doesn’t mean I’m going to start lighting up. The CFO of Rady Children’s Hospital was killed a mile from my house during my mother’s memorial service while he was out riding his bicycle, being healthy. Sometimes shizz happens, and while diet matters, it’s no more a guard against bad luck than any of those other multitude of things in your life like genetics and a careless woman in a Range Rover.

Which brings me to what I refer to as “blog chum,” the words I always hesitate to type lest it attract a group of angry club wielding acolytes the way blood draws a Great White: Dog Food. I don’t care what you do with it. There. I said it.

• You can feed a crappy kibble and your dog might live to 20 or he might look like he got run through a wood chopper.
• You can feed a high quality kibble and your dog might live to 20 or he might get cancer when he’s 2.
• You can feed raw poorly done and your dog might live to 20 or he might look like Casper when he’s 4 months old because he got nutritional hyperparathyroidism.
• You can feed raw that someone balanced for you and your dog might live to 20 or he might get kidney failure when he’s 7.

That’s the way it works. Food is one piece of a really complicated puzzle, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. (Probably dog food, magazines, or coconut oil.)

Now clearly, my education (paid for without the aid of Big Pet Food, by the by) and my experience lead me to recommend that with which I am familiar- that would be commercial dog food- but if you want to feed your dog raw and you swear it’s the most amazeballs choice ever and your dog is the healthiest dog who ever walked the face of the earth, go forth and be happy, because I really don’t have the energy to fight over any of the following:

• who taught me
• who bought me
• who sends me places
• how much I make off selling food

If you want my opinion, I’ll give it, and I think it’s an educated one. I’ll listen to what you have to say, though I may not agree. If you have decided that my views on that one topic mean my years of experience and knowledge about all things animal health related are bunk, well, we might as well enjoy a lively discussion about the upcoming primaries while we’re at it because might as well go out with a bang.

And then I will go make a healthy chicken salad and wash it down with a glass of wine, because that’s what agnawstics do.