I CAN read, and I'm not happy.

I've seen the ads on the talking box about something called "Beggin' Strips," the one where the voice-over for the dog says, "Bacon, bacon, bacon!" And then says, "I can't read!!!!"

You can see the web version of the ad here, at Purina's site.

That dog's lucky he can't read, because here's what the label actually says:


Crude Protein (Min) 15.0%
Crude Fat (Min) 4.0%
Crude Fat (Max) 7.0%
Crude Fiber (Max) 3.5%
Moisture (Max) 26.0% 3200 kcal/kg
39 kcal/piece

Ingredients
Ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, ground yellow corn, water, sugar, glycerin, meat, hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, soybean meal, bacon fat preserved with BHA, salt, sorbic acid (a preservative), artificial smoke flavor, calcium propionate (a preservative), glyceryl monostearate, phosphoric acid, choline chloride, added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6).

I put the parts I might consider consuming in bold. The rest of that belongs in a grain elevator, a kitchen, or a test laboratory, not in a dog.

I do wonder what they mean by "meat," though. Is that squirrel? Or rabbit? Or is that what gets dyed flourescent red when it gets spilled on the floor at the meat-processing plant? If it's rabbit or squirrel I'm cool with it. If it's that obscenely red stuff, though, not so much. Which makes me wonder about the "water."

I started to get excited when I saw "bacon fat," but then I saw the "preserved with BHA." Butylated hydroxyanisole is a mixture of the isomers 3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole and 2-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyanisole. Doesn't that sound tasty? I'm terribly sorry, but if you can't get fresh bacon fat, you should let it go rancid so I can roll in it and smell pretty.