The Atlantic

How Americans Decided Dogs Can’t Eat Grains

A new warning about dog food underscores a problem with certain diets that goes beyond pets.
Source: Klaus Vedfeldt / Getty

Although she is very special to me, Midge, my three-year-old rescue Chihuahua, is not all that special in general. She’s the average weight for her size. She has no known medical problems, besides anxiety, which is probably rational given that she’s eight inches tall. Nothing I’ve ever fed her has seemed to irritate her tiny little tummy.

Nevertheless, I feed her only grain-free dog food. The kind I give her costs about $100 a month (for a 12-pound dog!), and it’s made of an organic, grass-fed, non-GMO mix of beef, organ meat, and bone, all of which is processed with spinach and blueberry and freeze-dried into a patty the size of a Popeye’s biscuit. Twice a day, I break up one and a

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic6 min read
Florida’s Experiment With Measles
The state of Florida is trying out a new approach to measles control: No one will be forced to not get sick. Joseph Ladapo, the state’s top health official, announced this week that the six cases of the disease reported among students at an elementar
The Atlantic6 min read
There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now
It feels like a sin against the sanctitude of being alive to put a dollar value on one year of a human life. A year spent living instead of dead is obviously priceless, beyond the measure of something so unprofound as money. But it gets a price tag i
The Atlantic8 min readAmerican Government
The Most Consequential Recent First Lady
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The most consequential first lady of modern times was Melania Trump. I know, I know. We are supposed to believe it was Hillary Clinton, with her unbaked cookies

Related