"Can People Distinguish Pate from Dog Food?" -- They Can't.

[steven johnson]

Our taste buds are going to the dogs. In a research study to see if blind tasters could distinguish high-quality dog food from pate -- the results suggested the subjects could not tell the difference. This confirms the studies of blind wine tasting where judges couldn't distinguish cheap wines from expensive ones, if they couldn't see the labels.

Honey, could you pass the Alpo?

In the last few years, organic dog food made with human-grade free range meat and fresh vegetables has spiked in popularity among health-conscious shoppers. Some companies even claim, for instance, that "humans actually taste our foods, as part of our QC process!"

The paper is titled "Can People Distinguish Pâté from Dog Food?" and it concluded that, well, they can't.

These enterprising researchers separately put organic Canned Turkey & Chicken Formula for Puppies/Active Dogs, duck liver mousse, pork liver pâté, liverwurst, and spam in a food processor. The resulting confection was ladled into five different bowls and garnished with parsley.

The volunteers in this culinary experiment didn't exactly prefer the dog food, but they couldn't identify it either. "Only 3 of 18 subjects correctly identified sample C as the dog food," the paper says.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/01/tech/main4984433.shtml?tag=main_home_storiesBySection

[BlooInBloo]

1. BWAHAHAAH!!!

[aquart]

2. Uh huh. Now try that with Alpo.

[hedgehog]

3. According to my son, bacon flavor beggin' strips can NOT be used

as substitute for bacon bits or bacon.

[Orsino]

8. .

http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000070.php

[valerief]

4. Once my mother was so pissed at my drunk father who whined for something to eat that

she served him the cat's tuna on a dish. He ate it.
:rofl:
He deserved it.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Anyone remember Ralph getting his boss at...

the bus company to invest in the delicious new appetizer he found in the fridge?

[customerserviceguy]

6. It's a question of familiarity

Most people don't eat pate, so they don't know what it's supposed to taste like. (Disclaimer: I've never had it either.)

The same is true of wines, most people in American society don't drink wine regularly with meals, and for a majority of Americans who drink wine at all, it's mostly the cheap mass produced stuff. That, they're familiar with, and the subtle flavor and aroma notes of better wines are probably undetectable to them. It takes practice. Yes, I've invested time and money in such study.

[juno jones]

7. What silliness.

I'm pretty sure theres light years between foie gras and Alpo. For one, dog food isn't seasoned and certainly doesn't contain wine.

However pate from a can is probably no more remarkable than dog food from a can.

Pate story: One of my roomates had prepared a massively expensive pate as one of his culminating projects for his chef's degree. Barbarians we were at the time, myself and another roomate put it on sandwiches and ate it. Oh yeah, he was pissed when he found out.

I doubt dog food tastes anything like that between two slices of bread. That stuff was heaven on a stick.

edit to add; If you really can't tell the difference, I would worry that the dog's food was majorly oversalted.

[caraher]

9. Of course, this is high-grade dog food

Were the "people foods" also top-notch? (Not that there is such a thing as high-grade spam!)

Also, texture matters; the food processor essentially scrambled that

[Orsino]

10. "All right. Bag of otter's noses."

I suppose there will always be a market for prestige calories, as long as we wish to impress each other through conspicuous consumption. I've long suspected that wine snobbery is to some extent mass hypnosis if not outright snake oil--but I can barely tell red from white in a strong light. :shrug: