Haute Cuisine for Animals – C/O Vienna Magazine

It all began with wheat flour, vegetables, beetroot, and beef blood. These are the ingredients that American entrepreneur James Spratt is said to have used to mold one of the first dog biscuits in England around 1860. Since then, the inventiveness for animal food recipes is boundless.

Cats eat cattle, pressed into the finest tableware. Pets are served the chopped-up eyes of other conspecifics – even fellow species – which they would never eat in the wild. Meat waste mixed with toxins – and little meat in the end – is hawked to masters and mistresses as delicacies for top dollar.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, animals lived in the wild and knew how to fend for themselves without human help. Today, their two-legged masters supply their food and have perfected the consumption game. The animal “menu” ranges from vegan alternatives and colorful jelly lookalikes to poultry paste on parsley. Low-quality slaughterhouse offal such as udders, hooves, feathers, and bones vanish in the fine print as “animal by-products” – often of little nutritional value.

Artificial additives, flavor enhancers, sugar, and even sodium nitrite camouflage the otherwise disgusting food for humans as colorful, appetizing, and cute dishes. The latter compound is toxic, sugar is bad, but who cares, at least the food is “prettier” and smells more pleasant – pet food for whom?

It’s a fact that more and more of our four-legged friends are suffering from food intolerances and allergies. Many dogs and cats cannot tolerate industrial pet food and suffer from digestive problems and itching. That aside, at least animals are not being specially bred and slaughtered for pet food.

On the list in both dog and cat food, crude ash is only harmful at a higher dose, but all the more bizarre. When organic ingredients are heated, the inorganic residues remain as ash – it is even important for absorbing minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, but should only be consumed in moderation. Animal food stinks. The question is whether the food is repulsive or the person who, consciously or unconsciously, puts their aesthetics and values above the health of their pet.

The photo shoot for this article was an olfactory challenge for Luna Winter, a vegetarian. One package she ordered from a pet shop unintentionally contained live grasshoppers. However, she was strongly advised not to set them free outdoors as they could upset the local bio-balance. She had no choice but to heavy-heartedly let them starve to death (which only took a day).