squidupdate.com

For the past few years I have on occasions worried that my dog is too fat. A border terrier (luckily without any obvious inbreeding-related mutations or diseases), he weighs in at about a stone and a half. His size has never bothered him – he’s comfortable in his own furry little body – but people have at times made comments about his festively plump appearance. I’ve covered his ears to protect his feelings, explained his slow metabolism, decreased the number of prawn crackers he gets as an evening snack and thought about popping him the odd diet pill hidden in a piece of his favourite kebab meat. I have even increased his walkies.

The situation has also made me reconsider my own dietary conduct. I have long held the ambition to eat a whole roast chicken in one go, but now that would be setting a bad example to the dog. He would stare at me with a combination of desire and disappointment as I chewed away at the bird’s ankles, before going out in the garden to consume watering cans and geraniums and whatever other items of junk food he could find. I was actually only moments away from fulfilling my ambition a couple of weeks ago when I spotted a whole ready-cooked roast chicken on offer at Costcutter for only 79p. Needless to say, I shoved it in my basket but when I got home I thought I should have a quick peek at the ‘use by’ date before tucking in; imagine my fury when I found that the chicken of my dreams had gone out of date the day before and so was now officially poisonous and illegal. Costcutter is an idiot. But at least I don’t have to worry about those sort of disappointments any more, as eating an entire chicken is no longer an acceptable goal.

Now boycotting Costcutter, I have taken instead to visiting the Oriental Supermarket near my work. I browse the shelves gawking at foods that are staples for anyone from the East. “Ooh, spicy bean curd,” I gasp; “Wow, pickled cabbage in a can,” I exclaim, “who would have thought it?” Sadly, the main successes from my trips have been the various flavours of noodles and the peanut butter crackers. The spicy bean curd tasted like really bad medicine, the pickled cabbage was reminiscent of sauerkraut excavated from a trench in the Somme, the sugar-coated tamarind sweets had a touch too much chilli and the canned eel in black bean sauce was just bizarre.

Another problem with the food at the Oriental Supermarket is the complete lack of nutritional information. I might be willing to live on mock abalone if it was low in saturated fat, but there’s no guarantee that it’s any better than a whole roast chicken because it ain’t got calories on the label. I suppose that sort of thing isn’t considered important in a country with the deadliest levels of air pollution in the world. Oh well. Undaunted, I will be going back this week to get another packet of pickled day lily - I just can’t have been trying hard enough to like it the first time, and it is a vegetable after all. Isn’t it?

On a brighter note, information has come to me from an actual vet (rather than my own deluded brain) that once male border terriers have a certain operation they tend to balloon in size with no adverse effects to their health. Hoorah! I am no longer liable to be prosecuted for animal cruelty, as long as I don’t take the dog to China without a facemask.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS