Feeding the Animals

The Inner Beast ads can be considered a statement in an ongoing discussion concerning the relationship between wild and domesticated animals. Eating is something that humans quite obviously share with animals. Such commonality has been threatening in contexts with a heavily patrolled human–animal boundary. Norms pertaining to food and eating have often been used to mark the boundaries around what is acceptably human. Concerns include the risk to animals and humans of bacterial and protozoal “contamination,” digestibility, and whether such diets are nutritionally “balanced”. Meat, eating, animals—all of these have a long history of being rich in multiple meanings, of course, and associated not just with notions of the wild and the tame but also gender, civilization, nature, and culture. But among the wild feeders, a feeling of opposing corporate manipulation is especially powerful.