Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What Happens if You Eat Dog Food?


If you just eat a little bit of dog food, probably nothing will happen. But you don't really know that for sure because dog food is not subjected to the same health and safety regulations that human food is required to have.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for setting human food safety guidelines to prevent sickness due to contaminated or improperly handled products. In addition, the FDA is responsible for ensuring that food product labels are accurate in terms of ingredient listing and nutritional content.

Dog food does not have these same strict rules that human food has. Although most dog food contains the same basic components that are in people food — protein, carbohydrates and fats — the proportions of these ingredients are different than in human food and can be harmful if ingested in significant quantities or for prolonged periods of time. The same is true if you feed a dog the wrong proportion of these nutrients by giving it an unbalanced human diet.

Dog food contains many of the same ingredients as human food, like chicken, meat, and vegetables, but it may also contain animal by-products — for example, ground-up animal bones or organs like the intestines.

The best advice is to keep dog food for dogs and human food for humans!



Humans are not the only animals who have the ability to laugh. Smiling and laughing have been observed in non-human primate species during social play. This type of behavioral response serves as a signal to the group by spreading positive emotions, decreasing stress, and contributing to the cohesiveness of the group.

Humor-evoked laughter in humans can be divided into these stages. When listening to a joke, the first part of the humor is the punch line, an incongruous ending. Second, your mind begins to problem-solve in order to interpret this incongruity or surprise. Finally, the brain is able to appreciate these steps, which together form humor and evoke a response of laughter.

The neurotransmitter dopamine (a brain chemical) is responsible for allowing the brain to progress through the stages of humor. Dopamine allows us to feel good when we laugh. Some studies have demonstrated an improvement in health for chronically ill patients when they are exposed to funny stimuli. Thus the old adage “Laughter is the best medicine" probably has a note of truth in it.